THE 


LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE 


THOMAS  ARNOLD,  D.D. 

LATE   HEAD-MASTER   OF   RUGBY   SCHOOL,   AND    REGIUS  PROFESSOR 
OF  MODERN  HISTORY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD 


BY 

AETHUE  PENRHYN  STANLEY.]).!). 

DEAN  OF  WESTMINSTER 
TWO  VOLUMES  IN  ONE. 


NEW   YORK: 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS, 
1903. 


Lf 


PREFACE. 


THE  sources  from  which  this  work  has  been  drawn 
have  necessarily  been  exceedingly  various.  It  was  in 
fact  originally  intended  that  the  several  parts  should 
have  been  supplied  by  different  writers,  as  in  the  in- 
stance of  the  valuable  contribution  which,  in  addition 
to  his  kind  assistance  throughout,  has  been  furnished 
to  the  earlier  part  by  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge ;  and 
although,  in  its  present  shape,  the  responsibility  of 
arranging  and  executing  it  has  fallen  upon  one  per- 
son, yet  it  should  still  be  clearly  understood  how 
largely  I  have  availed  myself  of  the  aid  of  others,  in 
order  to  supply  the  defects  of  my  own  personal  knowl- 
edge of  Dr.  Arnold's  life  and  character,  which  was 
confined  to  the  intercourse  I  enjoyed  with  him,  first 
as  his  pupil  at  Rugby,  from  1829  to  1834,  and  thence- 
forward, on  more  familiar  terms,  to  the  end  of  his 
life. 

To  his  family,  I  feel  that  the  fewest  words  will  best 
express  my  sense,  both  of  the  confidence  which  they 
reposed  in  me  by  intrusting  to  my  care  so  precious  a 
charge,  and  of  the  manifold  kindness  with  which  they 
have  assisted  me,  as  none  others  could.  To  the  many 


IV  PREFACE. 

attached  friends  of  his  earlier  years,  the  occurrence  of 
whose  names  in  the  following  pages  makes  it  unneces- 
sary to  mention  them  more  particularly  here,  I  would 
also  take  this  opportunity  of  expressing  my  deep  obli- 
gations, not  only  for  the  readiness  with  which  they 
have  given  me  access  to  all  letters  and  information 
that  I  could  require,  but  still  more  for  the  active 
interest  which  they  have  taken  in  lightening  my  re* 
sponsibility  and  labor,  and  for  the  careful  and  most 
valuable  criticism  to  which  some  of  them  have  allowed 
me  to  subject  the  whole  or  the  greater  part  of  this 
work.  Lastly,  his  pupils  will  perceive  the  unsparing 
use  I  have  made  of  their  numerous  contributions.  I 
had  at  one  time  thought  of  indicating  the  various 
distinct  authorities  from  which  the  chapter  on  his 
"  School  Life  at  Rugby "  has  been  compiled,  but  I 
found  that  this  would  be  impracticable.  The  names 
of  some  of  those  who  have  most  aided  me  will  be 
found  in  the  Correspondence.  To  those  many  others, 
who  are  not  there  mentioned  —  and  may  I  here  be 
allowed  more  especially  to  name  my  younger  school- 
fellows, with  whom  I  have  become  acquainted  chiefly 
through  the  means  of  this  work,  and  whose  recollec- 
tions, as  being  the  most  recent  and  the  most  lively, 
have  been  amongst  the  most  valuable  that  I  have  re- 
ceived —  I  would  here  express  my  warmest  thanks  for 
the  more  than  assistance  which  they  have  rendered 
me.  Great  as  has  been  the  anxiety  and  difficulty  of 
this  undertaking,  it  has  been  relieved  by  nothing  so 
much  as  the  assurance  which  I  have  received  through 
their  co-operation,  that  I  was  not  mistaken  in  the  esti- 
mate I  had  formed  of  our  common  friend  and  master, 
and  that  the  influence  of  his  teaching  and  example 


PREFACE.  V 

Dontinues   and  will   continue   to   produce   the  fruits 
which  he  would  most  have  desired  to  see. 

The  Correspondence  has  been  selected  from  the 
mass  of  letters  preserved,  in  many  cases,  in  almost 
unbroken  series  from  first  to  last.  One  large  class  — 
those  to  the  parents  of  his  pupils  —  I  have  been  un- 
able to  procure,  and  possibly  they  could  not  have 
been  made  available  for  the  present  work.  Another 
numerous  body  of  letters  —  those  which  were  ad- 
dressed to  scientific  or  literary  men  on  questions 
connected  with  his  edition  of  Thucydides  or  his  His- 
tory—  I  have  omitted,  partly  as  thinking  them  too 
minute  to  occupy  space  wanted  for  subjects  of  more 
general  importance  ;  partly  because  their  substance  or 
their  results  have  for  the  most  part  been  incorporated 
into  his  published  works.  To  those  which  appear  in 
the  present  collection,  something  of  a  fragmentary 
character  has  been  imparted  by  the  necessary  omis- 
sion, wherever  it  was  possible,  of  repetitions,  such  as 
must  necessarily  occur  in  letters  written  to  different 
persons  at  the  same  time,  —  of  allusions  which  would 
have  been  painful  to  living  individuals,  —  of  domestic 
details,  which,  however  characteristic,  could  not  have 
been  published  without  a  greater  infringement  on 
privacy  than  is  yet  possible,  —  of  passages  which,  with- 
out further  explanation  than  could  be  given,  would 
certainly  have  been  misunderstood.  Still,  enough 
remains  to  give  in  his  own  words,  and  in  his  own 
manner,  what  he  thought  and  felt  on  the  subjects 
of  most  interest  to  him.  And  though  the  mode  of 
expression  must  be  judged  by  the  relation  in  which  he 
stood  to  those  whom  he  addressed,  and  with  the  usual 
»nd  just  allowance  for  the  familiarity  and  unreserved- 
i* 


VI  PREFACE. 

ness  of  epistolary  intercourse,  yet,  on  the  whole,  the 
Letters  represent  (except  where  they  correct  them- 
selves) what  those  who  knew  him  best  believe  to 
have  been  his  deliberate  convictions  and  his  habitual 
feelings. 

The  object  of  the  Narrative  has  been  to  state  so 
much  as  would  enable  the  reader  to  enter  upon  the 
Letters  with  a  correct  understanding  of  their  writer  in 
his  different  periods  of  life,  and  his  different  sphere  of 
action.  In  all  cases  where  it  was  possible,  his  opinions 
and  plans  have  been  given  in  his  own  words,  and  in 
no  case,  whether  in  speaking  of  what  he  did  or  in- 
tended to  do,  from  mere  conjecture  of  my  own  or  of 
any  one  else.  Wherever  the  Narrative  has  gone  into 
greater  detail,  as  in  the  chapter  on  his  "  School  Life 
at  Rugby,"  it  has  been  where  the  Letters  were  com- 
paratively silent,  and  where  details  alone  would  give 
to  those  who  were  most  concerned  a  true  representa- 
tion of  his  views  and  actions. 

In  conclusion,  it  will  be  obvious  that  to  have  mixed 
up  any  judgment  of  my  own,  either  of  praise  or  cen- 
sure, with  the  facts  or  the  statements  contained  hi  this 
work,  would  have  been  wholly  irrelevant.  The  only 
question  which  I  have  allowed  myself  to  ask  hi  each 
particular  act  or  opinion  that  has  come  before  me, 
has  been  not  whether  I  approved  or  disapproved  of  it, 
but  whether  it  was  characteristic  of  him.  To  have 
assumed  the  office  of  a  judge,  in  addition  to  that  of  a 
narrator  or  editor,  would  have  increased  the  respon- 
sibility, already  great,  a  hundredfold  ;  and  in  the 
present  case,  the  vast  importance  of  many  of  the 
questions  discussed  —  the  insufficient  time  and  knowl- 
edge which  I  had  at  command  —  the  almost  filial 


PREFACE.  VH 

relation  in  which  I  stood  towards  him  —  would  have 
rendered  it  absolutely  impossible,  even  had  it  not  been 
effectually  precluded  by  the  nature  of  the  work  itself. 
For  similar  reasons,  I  have  abstained  from  giving  any 
formal  account  of  his  general  character.  He  was  one 
of  a  class  whose  whole  being,  intellectual,  moral,  and 
spiritual,  is  like  the  cloud  of  the  poet, 

"  Which  moveth  altogether,  if  it  move  at  all," 

and  whose  character,  therefore,  is  far  better  expressed 
by  their  own  words  and  deeds,  than  by  the  represen- 
tation of  others.  Lastly,  I  would  also  hope  that  the 
plan,  which  I  have  thus  endeavored  to  follow,  will  in 
some  measure  compensate  for  the  many  deficiencies, 
which  I  have  vainly  endeavored  to  remedy  in  the  ex- 
ecution of  the  task  which  I  have  undertaken.  Some, 
indeed,  there  must  be,  who  will  painfully  feel  the  con- 
trast, which  probably  always  exists  in  the  case  of  any 
remarkable  man,  between  the  image  of  his  inner  life, 
as  it  was  known  to  those  nearest  and  dearest  to  him, 
and  the  outward  image  of  a  written  biography,  which 
can  rarely  be  more  than  a  faint  shadow  of  what  they 
cherish  in  their  own  recollections  —  the  one  represent- 
ing what  he  was  —  the  other  only  what  he  thought 
and  did  ;  the  one  formed  in  the  atmosphere  which  he 
had  himself  created,  —  the  other  necessarily  accom- 
modating itself  to  the  public  opinion  to  which  it  is 
mainly  addressed.  But  even  to  these  —  and  much 
more  to  readers  in  general  —  it  is  my  satisfaction  to 
reflect  that  any  untrue  or  imperfect  impression  of 
his  thoughts  and  feelings  which  may  be  gathered  from 
my  account  of  them  will  be  sufficiently  corrected  by 
his  own  representation  of  them  in  his  Letters,  and 


Till  PREFACE. 

that  the  attention  will  not  be  diverted  by  any  extra- 
neous comments  or  inferences  from  the  lessons  which 
will  be  best  learned  from  the  mere  record  itself  of  his 
life  and  teaching. 

May  14th,  1844, 
University  College,  Oxford. 


***  The  additions  contained  in  this  and  the  previous  editions,  subsequent 
to  the  first,  are  contained  in  a  Supplement. 


CONTENTS    OF    VOL.    I. 


CHAPTEE    I. 

EARLY    LIFE   AND   EDUCATION. 

Pag* 

Birth.  -^  Education  at  Wai-minster  and  Winchester.  —  Character  and 
Pursuits  as  a  Boy. — Associations  of  his  Childhood  in  after  Life. — 
LETTER  FROM  MR.  JUSTICE  COLERIDGE.  —  Education  at  Ox- 
ford. —  Corpus  Society.  —  Early  Friends.  —  Tucker.  —  Cornish. — 
Dyson.  —  Keble.  —  Pursuits. — Attic  Society.  —  Religious  Doubts 
on  his  Ordination ,17 


CHAPTER   IL 

LIFE    AT    LALEHAM. 

Election  at  Oriel.  —  Fellows  of  Oriel.  —  Marriage  and  Settlement 
at  Laleham.  —  Formation  of  his  Eeligious  Character  and  Belief.  — 
Early  Objects  of  Ambition.  —  Love  for  Laleham.  —  Occupations 
and  Views  as  Private  Tutor.  —  Letter  from  Mr.  Price.  —  General 
Pursuits.  —  Lexicon  and  Edition  of  Thucydides.  —  Articles  on 
Roman  History  in  Encyclopaedia  Metropolitana.  —  First  Acquaint- 
ance with  Niebuhr's  History,  and  with  German  Literature.  — First 
Visit  to  Rome,  and  Friendship  with  Chevalier  Bunsen.  —  Forma- 
tion of  his  Views  on  Social  and  Theological  Subjects.  —  Inde- 
pendent Views.  —  First  Volume  of  Sermons.  —  Election  to  the 
Head-mastership  of  Rugby.  —  Prediction  of  Dr.  Hawkins.  .  .  37 


1.  To  J.  T.  Coleridge,  Esq.     Choice  of  a  Profession      ...  63 

2.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.     Leaving  Oxford 64 

3.  To  Rev.  F.  C.  Blackstone.     Incapacity  for  the  Profession  of  a 

Schoolmaster 64 

4.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.     Oxford  Friends.  —  Religious  State        .  65 

5.  To  J.  T.  Coleridge,  Esq.     Occupations  at  Laleham   .        .        .67 

6.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.     Winter  at  Fledborough        ...  69 

7.  To  the  same.    Interest  in  India.  —  Pupils.  —  Religious  State    .  70 


CONTENTS. 


8.  To  the  same.    Death  of  his  Brother.  —  Domestic  Life  and  Inter- 

ests at  Laleham.  —  Pupils.  —  Desire  of  Personal  Intercourse 
with  his  Friends 72 

9.  To  J.  T.  Coleridge,  Esq.     On  his  Style 75 

10.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.    Ecclesiastical  History.  —  State  of  the  Re- 

ligious World. —  Ireland 76 

11.  To  J.  T.  Coleridge,  Esq.     Christian  Year.  —  Roman  History    .    77 

12.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.     Pupils.  —  Intercourse  with  Poor.  —  Tour 

in  Scotland  and  the  Lakes.  —  West  India  Slavery         .         .     78 

13.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.    Niebuhr.  —  Pupils      ....        79 

1 4.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.    Aristotle's  Politics.  —  Prophecy. — Daniel. 

—  English  Reformation 79 

1 5.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.    Tour  in  Italy.—  Contrast  of  Lower  Orders 

in  England  and  Italy 80 

16.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.     Tour  in  Italy.  —  Quarterly  Review      .        81 

17.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.    Prevalence  of  Intellectual  Activity  united 

with  Moral  Depravity.  —  Roman  Catholicism        .        .        .82 

18.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.    Church  Reform 83 

19.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.    Pain  at  having  given  Offence  by  Opinions 

on  Inspiration 84 

20.  To  Rev.  E.  Hawkins.     Doubts  about  Standing  for  the  Head- 

mastership  of  Rugby — Expulsion  at  Public  Schools    .        .    86 

21.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.     Views  in  offering  himself  as  a  Candidate 

for  Rugby •       .        .        .        .86 

22.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.    Election  at  Rugby         ....        87 

23.  To  Rev.  E.  Hawkins.     Election  at  Rugby          .         .         .         .87 

24.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.     Intentions  at  Rugby.  —  Church  Reform        88 

25.  To  Rev.  F.  C.  Blackstone.     Hopes  for  Rugby.  —  Church  and 

State.  —  Reform 89 

26.  To  Augustus  Hare,  Esq.     Rome.  —  Bunsen.  —  "  Guesses  at 

Truth."  —  Bohemia 91 

27.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.    Protest  against  supposed  Worldliness    .        91 

28.  To  J.  T.  Coleridge,  Esq.    Intercourse  with  Friends.  —  Dyson.  — 

Love  for  Laleham  ........    92 

29.  To  Rev.  F.  C.  Blackstone.    Laleham  and  Rugby  ...        93 

30.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.    First  Volume  of  Sermons.  —  Leaving 

Laleham .94 

31.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.    Laleham  and  Rugby.  —  First  Volume  of 

Sermons •        •  -      .  '      .     94 

32.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.     Settlement  at  Rugby    .        .        .        ,        96 


CHAPTER    m. 

SCHOOL  LIFE  AT  RUOBT. 

State  of  Opinion  on  English  Public  Schools.  —  His  Qualifications 
for  the  Situation  of  Head-master  of  Rugby.  —  Difficulties.  — 
Changes.  —  Fixed  Principles  of  Education. —  His  Relation  to  the 
Public.  —  To  the  Trustees.  —  To  the  Assistant  Masters. —  To  the 
School.  —  His  Views  of  Christianizing  Public  Schools.  Pecu- 
liarity of  Public  Schools.  —  General  Mode  of  Dealing  with  it 


CONTENTS.  XI 

I.  Discipline  of  the  School.  1.  Punishments.  2.  Fagging. — 
Influence  of  the  Sixth  Form.  3.  Kemoval  of  Boys.  —  II.  In- 
struction.—  Religious  Spirit.  —  Stimulus  to  Exertion.  —  Respect 
for  Industry.  —  View  of  Academical  Distinctions.  1.  Importance 
of  Classics.  2.  Modern  History,  Modern  Languages  and  Mathe- 
matics. 3.  Les>oiis  in  the  Sixth  Form.  4.  General  Effect  of 
his  Intellectual  Teaching.  —  III.  The  School  Chapel.  —  Services. 
—  Communion.  —  Confirmation.  —  Sermons.  —  IV.  Personal  In- 
tercourse with  the  Boarders  in  his  own  House,  and  with  his  Schol- 
ars generally.  —  V.  General  Results  of  his  Head-mastership  at 
Rugby.  —  Letter  from  Dr.  Moberly 96 


CHAPTER    IV. 

GENERAL   LIFE   AT   RUGBY. 

Intellectual  Advance  on  coming  to  Rugby.  —  His  Views  and 
Writings.  —  I.  Practical  Element.  —  Interest  in  Public  and  Na- 
tional Life. — Vehement  Language  on  Political  and  Ecclesiastical 
Subjects. —  Conservatism.  —  Jacobinism.  —  Popular  Principles. — 
Liberal  Principles.  —  II.  Speculative  Element.  —  Design  of  Three 
Great  Works.  1.  History  of  Rome.  2.  Commentary  on  the 
Scriptures.  3.  "  Christian  Politics,"  or  "  Church  and  State."  — 
Private  Life  at  Rugby.  —  Domestic  Circle. — Friendships.  —  In- 
tercourse with  the  Poor.  —  Life  at  Fox  How  .  .  .  .174 


CHAPTER    V. 

LIFB   AND  CORBESPONDENCE,    AUGUST,    1828,   TO   AUGUST,    1830. 

Hopeful  View.  —  First  Volume  of  his  Edition  of  Thucydides. — 
Essay  on  the  Social  Progress  of  States.  —  Pamphlet  on  "  The 
Christian  Duty  of  conceding  the  Roman  Catholic  Claims"  .  .  219 


1.  To  J.  T.  Coleridae,  Esq.     Entrance  on  his  Work  at  Rugby      .  221 

2.  To  Kev.  F.  C.  Blackstone.     First  Impressions  of  Rugby        .       222 
£.  To  the  same.     Differences  of  Opinion        .....  223 

4.  To  Mrs.  Evelyn.     On  the  Death  of  her  Husband    .         .         .224 

5.  To  Rev.  J.  Lowe.     Pamphlet,  Clergy  and  Statesmen         .         .  225 

6.  To  Rev.  J.  C.  Hare.     "  Defence  of  Niebuhr."  —  Pamphlet  "  On 

Roman  Catholic  Claims."  —  Estimate  of  the  Past.  —  Spirit 

of  Chivalry .         .  227 

7.  To   Rev.    Dr.    Hawkins.       Pamphlet   "  On    Roman    Catholic 

Claims."  —  Toryism.  —  Ignorance  of  the  Clergy  .         .         .  228 

8.  To  the  Parent  of  a  Pupil  holding  Unitarian  Opinions       .        .    230 


Xll  CONTENTS. 


9.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.     Domestic  Happiness.  —  Pamphlet  — 

Schism 231 

10.  To  Rev.  F.  C.  Blackstone.     Idolatry  —  How  far  applicable  to 

the  Church  of  Home 234 

11.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.    Thoughts  of  Emigration  to  Australia    .      235 

12.  To  J.  T.  Coleridge,  Esq.    Death  of  his  Father-in-law.  —  School. 

— Latin  Verse  and  Prose. —  Thucydides.  —  Pamphlet  .         .  236 

13.  To  Rev.  H.  Jenkins.    Thucydides.  —  True  Principles  of  Phi- 

lology     238 

14.  To  J.  T.  Coleridge,  Esq.    Libel  in  John  Bull.  —  Respect  for 

Episcopacy 238 

15.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.     On  the  same 239 

16.  To  F.  Hartwell,  Esq.    Interest  in  School 239 

17.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.     School.  — French  Revolution  of  1830.— 

Guizot.  —  Niebuhr.  —  Grande  Chartreuse.  —  Venice.  —  Pa- 
dua. —  Tyrol.  —  Old  Testament.  —  School  Sermons      .        .  240 

18.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.     Church  —  In  what  sense  a  Society. — 

French  Revolution  of  1830.  —  Belgian  Revolution         .        .243 


CHAPTER    VI. 

UFE    AND    CORRESPONDENCE,   SEPTEMBER,  1830,  TO  DECEMBER,  1832. 

Alarm  at  the  Social  Condition  of  the  Lower  Orders  in  England.  — 
Wish  to  rouse  the  Clergy.  —  Attempts  to  Influence  the  Useful 
Knowledge  Society.  —  Establishment  of  the  "  Englishman's  Reg- 
ister." —  Thirteen  Letters  in  the  "  Sheffield  Courant."  —  Want  of 
Sympathy. — Evangelical  Party.  —  Wish  for  Commentary  on  Old 
Testament.  —  Second  Volume  of  Sermons,  with  Essay  on  Inter- 
pretation of  Scripture 246 


19.  To  J.  T.  Coleridge,  Esq.   Want  of  Sympathy.  —  Public  Affairs. 

—  False  Reports  of  his  Proselytizing  his  Pupils.  —  Conser- 
vatism    252 

20.  To  Susannah  Arnold.    Public  Affairs.  —  Duty  of  the  Clergy.  — 

State  of  the  Lower  Orders.  —  Record  Newspaper  .         .        .  254 

21.  To  Rev.  Augustus  Hare.     Public  Affairs.  —  Old  Testament 

Prophets.  —  St  Paul  and  St.  James.  —  Want  of  a  Magazine 
for  the  Poor 256 

22.  To  Rev.  H.  Massingberd.    Liberal  Party  and  Reform    .        .       257 

23.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.     Proposal  of  setting  up  a  News- 

paper       258 

24.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.    Death  of  Niebuhr.  —  Italv.  —  First  News 

of  French  Revolution.  —  Interview  with  Niebuhr.  —  Church 
Reform,  and  Reform  Bill.  —  Dread  of  Warlike   Spirit  in 

France 259 

John  Ward,  Esq.    Englishman's  Register.  —  Aristocracy.  — 


CONTENTS.  Xlll 

Reform  Bill.  -   National  Debt.  —  Monopolies.  —  Corn  Laws. 

—  Political  Excitement 261 

26.  To  Susannah  Arnold.     Liberal  Conservatives        .        .        .      263 

27.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.     Englishman's  Kegister.  —  Thucydides    264 

28.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.    Failure  of  "  Englishman's  Reg- 

ister"      •  .  266 

29.  To  W.  Tooke,  Esq.    Refusal  of  an  Offer  of  Preferment.  —  Use- 

ful Knowledge  Society.  — "  Cottage  Evenings  "    .        .        .  266 

30.  To  Mrs.  Fletcher.     On  the  Death  of  her  Son        .        .        .268 

31.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.     Sheffield  Courant  Letters    .        .        .269 

32.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.     The  same. — Pestilences       .      269 

33.  To  Rev.  F.  C.  Blackstone.    Irvingism.  —  Gift  of  Tongues.  — 

Coming  of  "  the  Day  of  the  Lord."  —  Whigs  and  Tories     .  270 

34.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq       Contrast  of  Private  Happiness  with 

Public  Distress.  —  Cholera.  —  Work  on  the  Evidences  .        .271 

35.  To  Rev.  J.  C.  Hare.      Philological  Museum.  —  Religion  and 

TToAtTtKJJ  ..........    272 

36.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.    Farewell  on  his  leaving  Oxford. 

—  Danger  of  Public  Schools.  —  Church  Reform.  .        .        .  273 

37.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.     Essay  on  Interpretation  of  Scripture. — 

Right  Use  of  the  Second  Commandment      ....  274 

38.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.      Rydal.  —  Intercourse  with  Friends. — 

Archbishop  Whately.  —  Essay 274 

39.  To  the  same.     On  the  Death  of  a  Child         ....      275 

40.  To  the  Lady  F.  Egerton.     On  the  Conversion  of  an  Atheist    .  276 

41.  To  the  same.    On  the  same 278 

42.  To  J.  T.  Coleridge,  Esq.      Rydal.  —  Newspaper.  —  Sheffield 

Courant.  —  School  Composition 280 

43.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.    Rugby  Life.  —  Penny  Magazine     .        .  281 

44.  To  Rev.  J.  E.  Tyler.     Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Christian 

Knowledge.  —  Usefulness  of  Miscellaneous  Information  for 
the  People 281 

45.  To  J.  Ward,  Esq.    Domestic  Life.  —  Intercourse  with  Poor. — 

Useful  Knowledge  Society 283 

46.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.    Wish  for  a  Commentary  on  the 

Bible 284 

47.  To  Rev.  J.  E.  Tyler.     Collection  of  Sermons        .        .        .285 

48.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.    Idea  of  a  Commentary  without 

Sectarianism.  —  Death  of  his  Sister  Susannah  .        .        .      286 

49.  To  J.  T.  Coleridge,  Esq.    Family  Sickness.  —  Friendship        .  288 


CHAPTER  VH. 

LIFE    AND    CORRESPONDENCE,   JANUARY,    1833,    TO    SEPTEMBER,    1835. 

Fears  for  the  Church  Establishment.  —  Pamphlet  on  the  "  Princi- 
ples of  Church  Reform."  —  Outcry  occasioned  by  it.  —  Settlement 
of  his  own  Views  —  Preface  to  Third  Volume  of  Thucydides. — 
Fragments  on  "  the  State  and  the  Church."  —  Third  Volume  of 
Sermons.  —  Purchase  of  Fox  How.  —  Return  to  Roman  History. 
—  Influence  over  his  Scholars 290 


XIV  CONTENTS. 


50.  To  Rev.  J.  Hcarn.    New  Year's  Day  in  Westmoreland.  —  In- 

tolerance         299 

51.  tTo  W.  K.  Hamilton,  Esq.*    Rome  and  the  Towns  of  Italy.  — 

Gloomy  Prospects 300 

52.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.    Pamphlet  on  Church  Reform. 

— •  Reasons  for  writing  rt 301 

53.  To  the  same.     Reasons  for  his  coming  to  Westmoreland.  — 

Commentary. — Magazine 302 

54.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.    Farewell  on  his  going  to  India.  —  Recol- 

lections of  Oxford.  —  Gloomy  Views  of  Europe  and  England  303 

55.  To  an  Old  Pupil.(A.)    Advice  on  living  in  Uncongenial  Society  304 

56.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.      Remonstrance  against  a  Charge  of 

Haste  and  Ignorance  in  his  Writings 305 

57.  To  the  same 306 

58.  To  W.  Smith,  Esq.    Unitarians.  —  In  what  sense  Christians    .  308 

59.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.      Political  Opinions.  —  Jacobinism. — 

Economistes.  —  Toryism.  —  Historical   Liberty.  —  Reform 
Bill.  —  Articles  and  Liturgy  .        ...        .        .        .310 

60.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.     Calumnies     .        .        .        .312 

61.  To  Rev.  J.  Hearn.     False  View  of  what  is  Christian  Doctrine    313 

62.  To  Lady  Cavan.     The  Right  Use  of  the  Fourth  Commandment  315 

63.  To  J.  T.  Coleridge,  Esq.    Description  of  Fox  How .        .        .316 

64.  To  a  Pupil.     Want  of  Devotion  and  Reverence     .        .        .317 

65.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.     His  Birthday.  —  Pamphlet.  —  Confir- 

mation. —  Cricket-matches 318 

66.  To  Rev.  Augustus  Hare.     Pamphlet.  —  Not  Latitudinarian      .318 

67.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.     The  same.  —  Westmoreland  and  War- 

wickshire        ..........  320 

68.  To  Rev.  J.  C.  Hare.    Bunsen.  —  Third  Volume  of  Niebuhr.  — 

Roman  History 321 

69.  To  Mr.  Serjeant  Coleridge.    Birth  of  his  Youngest  Daughter. 

—  Bunsen's  Letters.  —  Political  Excitement.  • —  Whately.  — 
Oxford  Party.  —  Church  of  England.  —  Christ  the  only  Ob- 
ject of  Religious  Affection.  —  Church  and  State.  —  School. 

—  Allan  Bank.  —  Teaching  his  Daughters    ....  321 

70.  To  Jacob  Abbott.     Interest  in  America.  —  Young  Christian.  — 

Unitarianism  ......  ...  325 

71.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.     Translation  of  the  New  Testa- 

ment. —  Grounds  of  Roman  Catholic  Relief  Act.  —  High 
Churchmen    ..........  326 

72.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.    Health.  — Confession.  — Faith. —Un- 

certainty of  Life.  —  Death  of  his  Friends  Lowe  and  Augus- 
tus Hare 328 

73.  To   Rev.  F.  C.  Blackstone.     Fixing  of  Views.  —  Mountain 

Scenery.  —  School 329 

74.  To  Rev.  J.  C.  Hare.     On  the  Death  of  Augustus  Hare          .      330 

75.  To  Rev.  Dr    Hawkins.     Tracts  for  the  Times. —  Episcopacy 

not  Essential 330 

*  The  names  of  his  Laleham  pupils  in  this  Table  of  Contents  are  market] 
by  a  t- 


CONTENTS.  X7 


76.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.     Abstract  of  his  Work  on  the  Identity  of 

Church  and  State 332 

77.  To  Rev.  J.  C.  Hare.     Declaration  for  the  Admission  of  Dissent- 

ers to  the  Universities.  —  Unitarians.  —  Petition  against  the 
Jew  Bill 333 

78.  *  To  H.  Balston,  Esq.*     Advice  on  Composition  .         .         .      334 

79.  To  W.  Empson,  Esq.      Irish  Establishment.  —  Colleges   and 

Halls 335 

80.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Longley.    False  Hopes  of  Reaction. —  School — 

Pupils  in  Westmoreland 337 

81.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.      Respect  for  Episcopacy. — 

Church  and  State.  —  Sermons  on  the  Evidences.  —  Mechan- 
ics' Institute 338 

82.  To  a  former  Landlord.  —  Advice  under  painful  Illness. — For- 

giveness of  Injuries 339 

83.  To  Mrs.  Delafield.     On  her  77th  Birthday      ....      341 

84.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.     Roman  History.  —  Elyrians.  —  Physi- 

cal History.  —  Trades'  Unions.  — Letter  on  Christian  Sacri- 
fice. —  Abbott's  Works.  —  America 341 

85.  To  an  old  Pupil.  (  A.  )  t    Right  Use  of  University  Distinctions.  — 

Reserve 343 

86.  To  T.  F.  Ellis,  Esq.     Course  of  Study  desirable  for  Orders   .      344 

87.  *  To  H.  Highton,  Esq.     Rugby  Magazine          ....  346 

88.  To  Rev.  J.  Hearn.     New  Poor  Law.  —  Name  of  Christ        .       346 

89.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     On  his  Elevation  to  the  Bench.  — 

Church  Government.  —  Wordsworth.  —  Coleridge's  "  Letters 
on  Inspiration  ".........  347 

90.  To  Rev.  J.  C.  Hare.     Plan  of  a  Theological  Review          .         .  348 

91.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Longley.     Fifth  Form.  —  Number  of  the  School. 

—  School  Grammar.  —  Expulsion.  —  Entrance.  — Examina- 
tion          349 

92.  To  Rev.  F.  C.  Blackstone.    Influence  over  Pupils.  —  Church 

Government    ..........  351 

93.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.      Want  of  Sympathy.  —  TroAtriK^.  — 

Hymn-Book. —  High-Church  Party. — Evangelicals. — Whigs. 

—  Philosophy  of  Parties.  —  Interest  in  School.  —  Hebrew       352 

94.  *To  C.  J.  Vaughan,Esq.     Interest  in  Old  Pupils.  —  Advice  to 

learn  German. — Advice  for  Reading 355 

95.  To  A.  P.  Stanley,  Esq.     Oxford.  —  Popular  and  Liberal  Prin- 

ciples. —  Tory  Reaction 357 

96.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.     Origin  of  Civilization.  —  Influ- 

ence of  Greek  Philosophy.  —  Odium      .....  359 

97.  To  an  Old  Pupil.  (A  )     Value  of  Veneration.  —  Calumnies  .      360 

98.  To  Sir  T.  S.  Pasley,  Bart.     Comparative  Advantages  of  Pri- 

vate and  Public  Education 361 

99.  t  To  H.  Strickland,  Esq.     Advice  for  a  Tour  in  Asia  Minor      .  362 


*  The  names  of  his  former  Rugby  pupils,  where  not  otherwise  specified, 
are  marked  with  an  *. 

t  The  letters  of  the  alphabet  thus  affixed  are  merely  for  the  sake  of  dis. 
tmguishing  between  the  several  pupils  so  addressed. 


XVI  CONTENTS. 

100.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     Calumnies.  —  Example  of  Bur- 

net,  —  Aristophanes.  —  Pindar.  —  Homer.  —  Pupils.  —  Ox- 
ford and  the  London  University      ......  363 

101.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.    Heads  of  Houses  and  Convocation. — 

Clergy  and  Dissenters 365 

102.  To  a  Person  distressed  by  Sceptical  Doubts         .        .        .      366 

103.  *  To  H.  Hatch,  Esq.     Consumption 369 

104.  To  the  Rev.  F.  C.  Blackstone.     Want  of  Leisure.  —  Defects 

in  existing  Books.  —  Liberty  and  Toryism  ....  369 

105.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.    Separation  from  Friends    .        .371 

106.  *  To  C.  J.  Vaughan,  Esq.     Hatch.  —  Intercourse  with  Poor. 

—  Phaedo  of  Plato.  —  Livy       .  ....      371 

107.  To   Chevalier  Bunsen.     Polybius.  —  Hannibal's  Passage. — 

Hebrew 372 

108.  *  To  J.  P.  Cell,  Esq.     Interest  in  Former  Pupils    .        .        .  374 

109.  *  To  A.  P.  Stanley,  Esq.    Hatch.  —  Pupils  .        .        .        .375 

110.  To  an  Old  Pupil.  (B.)     Health.  —  Exercise     .        .        .        .376 

111.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.    Rugby  in  the  Holidays.  —  Rugby 

Magazine.  —  Pupils.  —  Phaxlo.  —  Coleridge's  Table-Talk   .  378 


CONTENTS    OF    VOL.    II. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

AND    CORRESPONDENCE,   SEPTEMBER,  1835,  TO  NOVEMBER,  1838. 

Pag» 

(1.)  Contest  with  the  Oxford  School  of  Theology.  —  Change  of 
Feelings  towards  the  High-Church  Party.  —  Oxford  School.  — 
Hampden  Controversy.  —  Article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review.  — 
(2)  Contest  in  the  London  University.  —  Endeavor  to  alter  the 
Examination  in  Arts.  —  Failure.  —  Retirement  from  the  Senate.  13 


112.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.    Acceptance  of  a  Fellowship  in  the 

London  University.  —  Idea  of  a  Church       .         .         .         .25 

113.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.    The  same.  —  Idea  of  an  Establishment    25 

114.  To  Rev.  F.  C.  Blackstone.    Irvingism.  —  Miraculous  Gifts.  — 

True  Development  of  Christianity 27 

115.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     Conservatism  and  Toryism  .         .     28 

116.  To  W.  Empson,  Esq.     Party  Feeling.  —  Ireland          .         .         29 

117.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.     Roman  History.  —  Niebuhr. — Etrus- 

can and  Oscan  Languages.  —  Pastoral  Epistles    .         .         .30 

118.  To  J.  C.  Platt,  Esq.     Lieber  on  Education.  —  London  Univer- 

sity.—  "  Religion  and  Politics."  —  Roman  History      .         .     31 

119.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.    Interest  in  School.  —  Southey. — 

Coleridge       .         .  33 

120.  *  To  C.  J.  Vaughan.  Esq.      Congratulation  on   Success  at 

Cambridge 34 

121.  To  an  Old  Pupil.  (B.)    Failure  in  Success  at  Oxford.  —  Hamp- 

den Controversy 35 

122.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.     Hampden  Controversy     ...        36 

1 23.  To  the  same.     The  same 37 

124.  To  Rev.  J.  Hearn.    Youth  and  Old  Age.  —  Dr.  Hampden  and 

the  Reformers 37 

125.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.    Petition  against  the  Jew  Bill.  — Ireland    39 

126.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.     Wish  to  circulate  "  Church  of 

England  Tracts."  —  Church  Authority. — Jew  Bill. — Pam- 
phlet on  Roman  Catholic  Claims          .         .         .         .         .40 

127.  To  Sir  T.  S.  Pasley,  Bart.     Reality 42 


xvm  CONTENTS. 


128   *  To  Dr.  Greenhill.     Medicine. — Physical  Science         .        .    42 

129.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.     The  Jew  Bill.  —  Ireland.  — 

Pastoral  Epistles.  —  Idolatry  and  Unitarianism. —  Wish  for 
the  Chair  of  Theology  at  Oxford.  —  Love  for  Rugby  .        .    44 

130.  To  A.  P.  Stanley,  Esq.    Fanaticism.  —  Oxford  Tracts        .        46 

131.  To  the  Earl  of  Howe.    Authorship  of  the  Edinburgh  Review    48 

132.  To  the  same.     On  the  same 49 

133.  To  the  same.     On  the  same 49 

134.  To  Mrs.  Bucklnnd.     Visit  to  the  Isle  of  Wight.  —  Fox  How. 

—  Winchester.  —  Rugby 50 

135.  To  Rev.  Dr  Hawkins.    Marriage  Act         ....        51 

136.  To  Sir  J.  Franklin,  Bart.     Colonial  Society.  —  Convicts.  — 

Missionary  Spirit 52 

137.  To  Rev.  J.  Hearn.     Rest.  — Family  Circle.  —  Conservatism        53 

138.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.    Fox  How.  —  Mountains.  —  Latin 

Verse. — Teaching  Shakespeare  to  Greeks.  —  Barante        .     54 

139.  *  To  A.  P.  Stanley,  Esq.     Oxford  in  Autumn.  —  Utilitarian- 

ism—  Faith  and  Reason 55 

140.  To  Sir  T.  Pasley,  Bart.    Administration  of  the  Sacramento        58 

141.  *  To  Dr.  Greenhill.     Supposed  Dangers  of  Study  of  Medicine    59 

142.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.     Coleridge's  Literary  Remains      .         .61 

143.  To  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin.     Neutrality.  —  Rest.  —  Celtic 

Languages .61 

144.  *To  W.  C.  Lake,  Esq.     Germany.  —  Excess  in  Division  of 

Labor.  —  Institutes  of  Gains.  —  Edition  of  St.  Paul's  Epis- 
tles. —  Priesthood 62 

145.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.  Illness.  —  Death  of  his  Aunt.  —  Church 

and  Priesthood 64 

146.  To  J.  C.  Platt,  Esq.     New  Poor  Law.  —  Reaction       .        .        65 

147.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     English  Divines.  —  Pilgrim's  Pro- 

gress      67 

148.  To  Sir  T.  Pasley,  Bart     Christianity  and  the  Church.  —  Suc- 

cession   68 

149.  To  J.  C.  Platt,  Esq.     Church  Rates.  —  "  Impartiality  "  in  Re- 

ligious Matters 70 

150.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     Fox  How  in  Winter.  —  Plan  of 

Roman  History. —  Study  and  Practice  of  Law.  —  Medicine. 

—  Oxford    ...  72 

151.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.    Fox  How.  —  Oxford.  —  Corpus         .        74 

152.  To  Rev.  J.  Hearn.     Consent  of  Antiquity.  —  Eucharist   .        .    75 

153.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.     Grammars 77 

154.  To  G.  Pry  me,  Esq.,  M.  P.     College  Fines.  —  Oaths.  —  Halls      78 

155.  To  Crabbe  Robinson,  Esq.    London  University.  —  Degree  in 

Arts.  —  Unitarians.  —  Examiners        .        .        .        .        .80 

156.  To  Sir  T.  S.  Pasley,  Bart     Oxford.  — Abbott's  '-Way  to  do 

Good"  —  Duke  of  Wellington's  Despatches.  —  Weather     .    83 

157.  To  an  Old  Pupil,  (c.)     Religious  Duty  of  Cultivating  the  In- 

tellect   84 

158  To  Bishop  Otter.  London  University. —  Charter.  —  Different 

Plans 85 

59.  To  Rev.  H.  Hill.  Thucydides.  —  Rome.  — Ordination  .  89 

160.  *  To  J.  C.  Vaughan,  Esq.     Roman  History.  —  Professions      .     90 

161.  To  ivL'v.  J.  Hearn.    Parties  uuu  individual;;    .        ...  90 


CONTENTS.  XIX 

162.  *  To  Dr.  Greenhill.      Homoeopathy.  —  Magnetism.  —  Study 

and  Practice  of  Law  and  Medicine        .....  91 

163.  To  W.  Empson,  Esq.     London  University  ....  92 

164.  To  Rev.  T.  Penrose.    Peace.—  Contrast  of  Parish  and  School  94 

165.  To  W.  Empson,  Esq.     London  University.  —  Degrees  in  Arts  94 

166.  To  J.  C.  Platt,  Esq.     Newspapers. —  Tour  in  France.  —  Se- 

curity of  English  Aristocracy 96 

167.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     Legends  in  Roman  History. — 

Charter  of  London  University 97 

168.  fTo  Rev.  T.  J.  Ormerod.     The  two  Antichrists  ,         .         .  98 

169.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     Legends  in  Roman  History  .         .  98 

170.  To  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.    London  and  Oxford.  —  Sanderson. 

—  Fox  How 101 

171.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.     Archbishop  of  Cologne.  —  Church  and 

State.— Rothe 102 

172.  *To  A.  H.  Clough,  Esq.     Oxford  Scenery  .         .         .104 

173.  To  Sir  T.  Pasley,  Bart.     Defeat  at  the  London  University. — 

Herman  Meri vale. —  Eton. —  Railway          .         .         .         .105 

174.  To  the  Bishop  of  Norwich.    Difficulties  in  London  University. 

— Respect  for  Bishops          .        .        .        .        .        .        .106 

175.  To  Rev.  J.  E.  Tyler.     The  same.  —  King's  College      .        .      107 

176.  To  an  Old  Pupil.  (D.)     Oxford  Theology         .         .         .         .108 

177.  To  C.  J.  Vaughan,  Esq.    Congratulations  on  Success  at  Cam- 

bridge   Ill 

178.  To  the  Earl  of  Burlington.     Viva-voce  Examination    .         .112 

179.  *  To  Dr.  Greenhill.     Sermons  on  Prophecy.  —  Weather          .  114 

180.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     First  Volume  of  Roman  History. 

—  Aristocracy.  —  London  University.  —  Rugby  .         .         .114 

181.  To  the  Bishop  of  Norwich.    Reasons  for  Retiring  from  the 

London  University       .         .         .         ..        .         .         .115 

182.  To  an  Old  Pupil.  (D.)     Athanasian  Creed  .         .         .         .117 

183.  To  T.  F.  Ellis,  Esq.     Advice  for  Visiting  Rome.     .         .         .118 

184.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.    Oxford  Examinations.  —  Physical  Sci- 

ence.—  Froude's  Remains 120 

185.  t  To  Rev.  W.  K.  Hamilton.     Wordsworth's  Greek  Grammar. 

—  Scepticism.  —  Bunsen 121 

186.  To  the  Earl  of  Burlington.    Retirement  from  the  London  Uni- 

versity   122 


CHAPTER    IX. 

LIFE   AND   CORRESPONDENCE,   NOVEMBER,    1838,   TO   AUGUST,    1841. 

Desire  for  Peace  and  for  Positive  Truths.  —  "  Lecture  on  the  Divis- 
ions of  Knowledge."  —  "  Two  Sermons  on  Prophecy." —  Second 
Edition  of  Thucydides.  —  Attempt  to  form  a  Society  for  drawing 
Attention  to  the  "State  of  the  Lower  Orders.  —  "  Herts  Reformer 
Letters."  —  Views  on  the  Church.  —  Subscription.  —  Fourth  Vol- 
ume of  Sermons 123 

1* 


CONTENTS. 


187.  To.  Rev.  J.  Hcarn.     Rest  of  Parish  contrasted  with  Anxiety  of 

School.  —  Bunsen.  —  State  of  Lower  Orders.  —  Egyptian 
Discoveries 130 

188.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.     Church  and  State.  —  Eucharist        .      132 

189.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.    Wish  to  remove  Suspicion  of  Hetero- 

doxy      134 

190.  To  J.  C.  Platt,  Esq.     Chartism.  —  New  Poor  Law        .         .       136 

191.  To  Rev.  F.  C.  Blackstone.     Gladstone  on  Church  and  State. 

—  Despondency.  —  Roman  History.  —  Social  Evils.  —  Re- 
actions           136 

192.  *To  A.  P.  Stanley,  Esq.     Restoration  of  Deacons      .        .       138 

193.  *To  J.  P.  Gell,  Esq.     Appointment  to  College  in  Van  Die- 

men's  Land 139 

194.  To  James  Stephen,  Esq.    Advantage  of  uniting  the  Office  of 

a  Clergvman  with  that  of  a  Teacher 140 

195.  *  To  E.  Wise,  Esq.    Private  Tuition 141 

196.  *  To  J.  P.  Gell,  Esq.     On  the  Death  of  his  Brother        .         .142 

197.  To  James  Stephen,  Esq.    Inconvenience  of  Local  Committees 

in  Educational  Institutions 142 

198.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     Legal  Decision  on  the  Founda- 

tioners of  Rugby  School 142 

199.  To  Sir  T.  S.  Pasley,  Bart.     Chartism.  —  Reality  of  Politics.  — 

Confirmations 143 

200.  To  Archdeacon  Hare.    Niebuhr's  Letters.  —  Thucydides     .      144 

201.  To  an  Old  Pupil.  (E.)     Unitarianism.  —  Priestley    .         .         .  145 

202.  To  Rev.  G.  Cornish.     Childishness  of  Boys.  — Oxford  Com- 

memoration of  1839 146 

203.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.    Birthday.  —  South  of  France.  —  Italy. 

Provencal  Language.  —  Despondency  .:  147 

204.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     South  of  France.  —  Spanish  Man- 

ners.—  Coleridge's  Literary  Remains.  —  Chartism       .        .  149 

205.  To  Sir  T.  S.  Pasley.     Toulon.  —  Pope's  Palace  at  Avignon. — 

Pony.  —  British  Association  at  Birmingham        .        .        .150 

206.  *  To  J.  L.  Hoskyns,  Esq.     Reading  for  Ordination      .         .       152 

207.  *  To  T.  Bnrbidge,  Esq 156 

208.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.     On  the  Doctrine  of  the  Eucharist    .       158 

209.  To  J.  Marshall,  Esq.     Society  for  calling  Attention  to  the 

State  of  the  Lower  Orders 159 

210.  *  To  H.  Balstoii,  Esq.      Liveliness  necessary  for  a  School- 

master   160 

211.  To  an  Old  Pupil.  (D.)     Ordination. — Difficulties  in  Subscrip- 

tion.—  Deacons 161 

212.  On  Church  Endowments 162 

213.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.     State  of  the  Poor.  —  Westmoreland   .  163 

214.  To  James  Marshall,  Esq.     Necessity  of  Union  of  Parties     .       163 

215.  To  Rev.  J.  Hearn.      Westmoreland.  —  Aurora  Borcalis.  — 

Taylor's  Ancient  Christianity. — Early  Church    .         .         .  164 

216.  To  J.  C    Platt,  Esq.      Lecture  for  Mechanics'  Institutes.  — 

State  of  the  Poor.  —  Trials  of  Chartists       .         .         .         .166 

217.  To  Thomas  Carlyle,  Esq.     State  of  the  Poor       .        .        .168 


CONTENTS.  XXI 

**«.  To  J.  Marshall,  Esq.  Englishman's  Register.  —  Political 
Creed.  —  Economists.  —  King's  Supremacy.  —  Christian 
Church.  —  Dissent.  —  Historical  Reforms.  —  Aristocracy 
—  Political  Privileges  .  169 

\19.  To  Sir  T.  S.  Pasley,  Bart.  Difficulties  of  Scripture.  —  Coloni- 
zation.—  Daniel 172 

220.  To  Archdeacon  Hare.     Niebuhr.  —  Coleridge.  —  Thirlwall's 

Greece 174 

221.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.     Political  Differences         .        .        .175 

222.  To  Mr.  Justice   Coleridge.    Formation  of  his    Opinions.  -" 

Prophecy 175 

223.  To  Sir  Culling  E.   Smith,   Bart.      Anonymous  Writing  in 

Newspapers  .         .         .         .        .        .        .         .         .         .178 

224.  *  To  Rev.  H.  Fox.     Call  to  a  Missionary  Life      .         .         .179 

225.  *  To  the  same.     On  the  same 180 

226.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.     Berne.  —  Roman  History.  —  Privilege 

Question 182 

227.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.     War  with  China       .         .         .        .183 

228.  To  W.  Leaper  Newton,  Esq.     Railway  Travelling  on  Sundays  184 

229.  To  the  same 184 

230.  To  the  same 186 

231.  *  To  Ho wel  Lloyd,  Esq.     On  the  study  of  Welsh    .        .        .187 

232.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.     On  Subscription       .         .        .         .187 

233.  To  the  same 188 

234.  To  the  same 189 

235.  *  To  J.  P.  Cell,  Esq.     Van  Diemen's  Land.  —  Sacred  Names  189 

236.  t  To  Rev.  W.  K.  Hamilton.     Music.  —Flowers.—  Keble         .  190 

237.  To  Rev.  Herbert  Hill.    Importance  of  Mathematics     .         .       191 

238.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.     Church  Extension. — Prophecy          .  192 

239.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.     Rugby  Life.  —  Second  Volume  of  Ro- 

man History. —  Subscription. — Deacons. —  State  Services  .  193 

240.  To  the  same.     On  the  Accession  of  the  King  of  Prussia.  — 

Refusal  of  the  Wardenship  of  Manchester  .         .        .         .196 

241.  To  an  Old  Pupil.  (B.)    Danger  of  Oxford  Society.  —  Tour  in 

Italy 196 

242.  *  To  Rev.  H.  Balston.      Consumption.  —  Responsibility  of 

School          ....  198 

243.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.     Russia. — War.  —  Fox  How.  —  Want 

of  Leisure 199 

244.  To  Sir  T.  S.  Pasley,  Bart.     Dangers  of  War.  —  Chartism.  — 

Cyprian.  —  Austria 200 

245.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.    Bampton  Lectures.  —  Episcopacy. — 

Internal  Evidence 201 

246.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.    Illness.  —  Ottery.  —  School.  —  Ox- 

ford. —  Rationalism.  —  Second  Volume  of  Roman  History     203 

247.  *  To  W.  S.  Karr,  Esq.     Sanscrit  —  Football  Matches     .         .  205 

248.  To  Archdeacon  Hare.     Sermons  on  "  Victory  of  Faith."  — 

King's  Supremacy         ........  206 

249.  *  To  Rev.  H.  Balston.     Guernsey        .....       207 

250.  *  To  the  Same.     The  School  —  Consumption         .         .         .  207 

251.  To  an  Old  Pupil.  (G.)     Law  and  Orders.  — Parochial  Ministry 

and  Education        ....  ....  208 

252.  To  the  Same.     Dangers  not  to  be  sought      ....       209 


XXli  CONTENTS. 

253.  To  RTI  OH  Pnpil.  (H.)     Importance  of  Good  Men  engaged  in 

Busi.icss .  210 

254.  t  To  Rev.  W.  K.  Hamilton.     Salisbury.  —  War.         .         .       211 

255.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.     "  Via  Media."  — Succession.  —  Glad- 

stone on  Church  Principles.  —  Church         .        .        .        .211 

256.  To  an  Old  Pupil,  (o.)     Ordination 214 

257.  To  the  same.     Oaths 214 

258.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     Shooting.  —  Education  of  Girls.  — 

Agreement  with  Pearson's   Definition  of  the   Church.  — 
Fourth  Volume  of  Sermons 215 

259.  To  W.  Balston,  Esq.     On  the  Death  of  his  Son,  H.  Balston     217 

260.  To  Rev.  T.  Penrose.     On  the  same.  —  Third  Volume  of  Ro- 

man History 217 

261.  tTo  Rev.  T.  J.  Ormerod.    Fox  How.  —  Southey. — Words- 

worth        218 

262.  To  W.  W.  Hull,  Esq.    Winter  Holidays.  —  Future  Prospects  218 

263.  To  Rev.  J.  Hearn.     Occupations.  —  Over  Caution          .         .     219 

264.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.    Third  Volume  of  Roman  History.  — 

Hannibal  and  Nelson.  —  War.  —  Oxford  School          .        .221 

265.  *  To  Rev.  A.  P.  Stanley.    Modern  Greece.  —  Tour  in  Italy.  — 

Oxford .223 

266.  *J.  P.  Gell,  Esq.     Van  Diemen's  Land.  — Rugby  Life. — 

Public  Affairs 224 

267.  To  Sir  J.  Franklin,  Bart.    Difficulties  of  Education  in  Van 

Diemen's  Land     . 226 

268.  To  the  same -228 

269.  To  Rev.  T.  Penrose.    Provident  and  Masonic  Clubs        .        .  230 

270.  *  To  Rev.  T.  J.  Ormerod.     True  and  False  Sacrifice  .        .      230 

271.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.    Fourth  Volume  of  Sermons. — 

Differences  of  Opinion.  —  Rugby. — Aristotle      .        .        .231 

272.  To  the  same.    Dissent 234 

273.  To  Rev.  James  Randell.    Dissent  —  The  Doctrine  of  the 

Trinity 235 

274.  To  Rev.  J.  Hearn.    Fever  at  Rugby.  —  Return  of  Mr.  Tucker  235 

275.  To  Rev.  J.  Tucker.    Renewal  of  Intercourse   .        .        .        .236 

276.  To  the  same 238 

277.  To  the  same.    Farewell  on  his  Return  to  India        .  .  239 


CHAPTER    X. 
General  Views  during  his  last  Year 240 

LETTERS. 

278.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.    Acceptance  of  Professorship  of  Mod- 

ern History 244 

279.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     School  Difficulties.  —  Difficulties 

of  Hannibal's  March.  —  Notes. — Professorship    .         .         .245 
880.  To  Sir  T.  S.  Pasley,  Bart.    Bishopric  of  Jerusalem.  —  Chris- 
tian Ministry 24' 


CONTENTS.  XX1H 

281.  *  To  Rev.  A.  P.  Stanley.    Plan  for  Lectures        .  248 

282.  To  W.  Empson,  Esq.      Professorship.  —  Tour  to  Spain.  — 

Guelph  and  Ghibelin  Controversy. — Lamennais          .         .249 

283.  To  Rev.  T.  Hill.     Popery  and  Protestantism         .        .         .250 

284.  To  an  Old  Pupil.  (r>.)     Roman  Catholics  and  Oxford  School  251 

285.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     Oxford  School.  —  Bishop  Selwyn  252 

286.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.     Advance  of  Life          ....  253 
Inaugural  Lecture.  —  Introductory  Lecture. — Intentions  for  the  Fu- 
ture. —  Course  on  English  History.  —  Terminal  Lectures  on  Biog- 

'     raphy 254 

287.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.    Influence  of  Jews.  —  Church  and  State 

288.  To  Rev.  F.  C.  Blackstone.     Professorship         .         .        .        .263 

289.  *  To  Rev.  R.  Thorpe.     Oxford  School          ....      264 

290.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     High  and  Low  Church.  —  Roman 

Catholics  and  Protestants 265 

291.  To  Rev.  Dr.  Hawkins.     Offer  to  resign  the  Professorship     .      266 

292.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     Intentions  for  the  Professorship     .  267 

293.  To  the  same 268 

294.  To  Rev.  J.  Hearn.     Windermere  in  Winter.  —  Occupations     .  268 

295.  To  Rev.  H.  Hill.     Stay  in  Oxford 269 

296.  To  an  Old  Pupil.  (K.)     Influences  of  Oxford  .         .        .        .270 

297.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     Stay  in  Oxford  ....      270 

298.  To  Archdeacon  Hare.     Charge.  —  Despondency       .         .         .  271 

299.  To  Rev.  H.  Fox.     India.  —  Difficulties  of  Moral  Sense.  —  El- 

phinstone's  India  .........  272 

300.  To  Chevalier  Bunsen.    Basque  Language.  —  Carthagena     .       273 

301.  To  Rev  Dr.  Hawkins.     Terminal  Lecture.  — Carlyle's  Visit    .  274 

302.  To  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge.     Colonial  Bishoprics.  .         .         .      275 
Last  Days.  —  Diary.  —  Occupations.  —  Farewell   Sermon.  —  Last 

Evening.  —  Death.  —  Conclusion 275 

APPENDIX  A. 

Prayers  written  for  various  Occasions  in  Rugby  School  (with  occa- 
sional Prayers)      299 

APPENDIX  B. 
Selection  of  Subjects  for  School  Exercises  .....  308 

APPENDIX  C. 
Epitaphs  in  Rugby  Chapel .  «  312 

APPENDIX  D. 
Travelling  Journals 314 

I.      TOUR    IN    NORTH    OF   ITALY,    1825. 

1.  Contrast  of  English  and  Italian  Peasantry 315 

2.  Cliff  above  the  Lake  of  Como  (First  Visit)      .        .        .         .316 


XXIV  CONTENTS. 

II.      TOUR   IN    SCOTLAND,  182ft. 

Comparison  of  Scotch  and  English  Education         .        .         .        .317 

III.      TOUB   TO   BOMB   THBOCOH   FRANCE   AND   ITALY,   1827. 

1.  Prayers  for  Kings 318 

2.  French  People 318 

3.  Approach  to  Rome  (first  Visit) 319 

4.  View  from  the  Capitol.  —  Arch  of  Titns         .        .        .        .321 

5.  Monte  Mario 322 

6.  Roman  Churches    .........      323 

7.  Evils  of  Residence  abroad 324 

8.  Meeting  with  Savigny 324 

9.  Colosseum 324 

10.  Plain  of  the  Po  —  Italy  and  Prussia 325 

11.  Cliff  above  the  Lake  of  Como  (second  Visit)    ....  327 

IV.      TOCB   IN    GEBMANT,   1828. 

1.  First  View  of  the  Rhine 327 

2.  The  Elbe.  —  Rivers  and  Human  Life 328 

V.      TOUB   IN    SWITZERLAND   AND   NORTH   OF   HALT,    1829. 

1.  The  Jura     .        .        .        . 329 

2.  The  Mediterranean 330 

3.  The  Lake  of  Como.  —  England  and  Italy          ....  330 

4.  Chiavenna 331 

5.  Champagne         . 333 

VI.       TOUR    IN    THE    SAME. 

1 .  French  Liberals  at  Geneva 333 

2.  View  from  S.  Maria  del  Monte       ......      334 

3.  Cliff  above  the  Lake  of  Como  (third  Visit)       .        .        .         .336 

4.  Good  Influence  of  Italian  Clergy  on  Wills      .        .        .  '      .      337 

5.  Imitation  of  Herodotus •'•'     .  338 

6.  Anniversary  of  his  Wedding-Day 339 

7.  Visit  to  Niebuhr  at  Bonn 340 

8.  Germany,  France,  and  England 342 

VII.      TOUB    IN    SCOTLAND,    1831. 

1.  Contrast  of  Scotch  and  English  Churches  .•»    . .         .         .        .843 

2.  Church  Reform .,       •      344 

VIII.       TOUR    IN    NORTH    OF    FRANCE,  1837. 

1.  Recollections  of  different  Visits  to  Dover  >  845 

2.  Chartrez.  — Good  and  Evil  of  Roman  Catholicism         '.        .      348 

IX.   TOUR  IN  THE  SOUTH  OF  FRANCE. 

1.  Paris > .    1    .349 

2.  France  and  England 350 


CONTENTS.  ixv 


3.  Palace  at  Avignon 350 

4.  Plain  of  Crau.  —  Salon 351 

5.  Geneva 352 

6.  Roads  and  Railways 353 

7.  France         .  353 

X.      TOUR  TO  ROME  AND  NAPLES  THROUGH  FRANCE  AND  ITALY,  1840. 

1.  Orleans. —  Siege  of  Orleans 355 

2   Use  of  Images 356 

3.  French  Geology.  —  Feudal  Castles 358 

4.  Ancient  and  Modern  Times 360 

5.  Sunset  on  the  Mediterranean 361 

6.  Italians 361 

7.  Campo  Santa  at  Pisa 361 

8.  Approach  to  Rome.  —  Tuscan  Population.  —  Sienna.  —  Sce- 

nery. —  Radicofani.  — Campagna.  —  Rome.  —  Athens. — 
Jerusalem 366 

9.  Pantheon.  —  S.  Stephano  Rotondo.  —  Martyrs        .        .        .      369 

10.  Appii  Forum       .         .  371 

11.  Mola  di  Gaeta. —  Cicero's  Villa 371 

12.  Naples 372 

13.  Pompeii  372 

14.  Aquila.  —  Church  of  England  at  Home  and  Abroad .         .         .  373 

15.  Vale  of  Rieti.  —  Moral  and  Natural  Beauty    ....      374 

16.  Ancient  City  Walls.  —  Watershed  of  the  Apennines  .         .  376 

17.  Banks  of  Metaurus 378 

18.  Classical  Inscriptions          ........  379 

19.  Papal  Government 379 

20.  Modena.  —  Political  Freedom 380 

21.  Italian  Switzerland.  —  Swiss  Nation        .....      382 

22.  Swiss  and  English  Scenery 383 

23.  Swiss  Lowlands 384 

24.  Farewell  to  France 386 

25.  Landing  in  England  386 

26.  London  to  Rugby 386 

27.  Arrival  at  Fox  How 387 

XI.       TOUR   IN    THE    SOUTH    OF    FRANCE,    1841. 

1.  Prospects  of  Theology .  389 

2.  French  Scenery 389 

3.  Gascony 389 

4.  Contrast  of  S.  Jean  de  Luz  and  Mola  di  Gaeta       .        .        .      390 
5'.  Frontier  of  France  and  Spain '        .  390 

6.  Birthplace  of  Scaliger 391 

7.  Translation  of  the  Bible  into  French 391 

8.  Roman  Catholicism 392 

9.  Prospects  for  England 392 

10.  Prospects  for  France.  —  Return        .         .        .        .        .        .      393 


LIST  OF  WORKS       .        .*• 394 

INDEX  .       395 


THE 


LIFE  OF  THOMAS  AMOLD,  D.  D. 


CHAPTER    I. 

EAELY  LIFE  AND   EDUCATION. 

THOMAS  AENOLD,  seventh  child  and  youngest  son  of 
William  and  Martha  Arnold,  was  born  on  June  13th, 
1795,  at  West  Cowes,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  where  his 
family  had  been  settled  for  two  generations,  their  origi- 
nal residence  having  been  at  Lowestoff,  in  Suffolk. 

His  father,  who  was  collector  of  the  customs  at 
Cowes,  died  suddenly  of  spasm  in  the  heart,  on  March 
3d,  1801.  His  two  elder  brothers,  William  and  Mat- 
thew, died,  the  first  in  1806,  the  second  in  1820.  His 
sisters  all  survived  him,  with  the  exception  of  the 
third,  Susannah,  who,  after  a  lingering  complaint  in 
the  spine,  died  at  Laleham  in  1832. 

His  early  education  was  confided  by  his  mother  to 
her  sister,  Miss  Delafield,  who  took  an  affectionate 
pride  in  her  charge,  and  directed  all  his  studies  as  a 
child.  In  1803  he  was  sent  to  Warminster  school,  in 
Wiltshire,  under  Dr.  Griffiths,  with  whose  assistant 
master,  Mr.  Lawes,  he  kept  up  his  intercourse  long 
after  they  had  parted.  In  1807  he  was  removed  to 
Winchester,  where,  having  entered  as  a  commoner, 
and  afterwards  become  a  scholar  of  the  college,  he 
remained  till  1811.  In  after  life  he  always  cherished 

2*  B 


18  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

a  strong  Wykehamist  feeling,  and,  during  his  head- 
mastersliip  at  Rugby,  often  recurred  to  his  knowledge, 
there  first  acquired,  of  the  peculiar  constitution  of  a 
public  school,  and  to  his  recollections  of  the  tact  in 
managing  boys  shown  by  Dr.  Goddard,  and  the  skill 
in  imparting  scholarship  which  distinguished  Dr.  Ga- 
bell ;  —  both,  during  his  stay  there,  successively  head- 
masters of  Winchester. 

He  was  then,  as  always,  of  a  shy  and  retiring  dispo- 
sition, but  his  manner  as  a  child,  and  till  his  entrance 
at  Oxford,  was  marked  by  a  stiffness  and  formality  the 
very  reverse  of  the  joyousness  and  simplicity  of  his 
later  years  ;  his  family  and  schoolfellows  both  remem- 
ber him  as  unlike  those  of  his  own  age,  and  with 
peculiar  pursuits  of  his  own ;  and  the  tone  and  style 
of  his  early  letters,  which  have  been  for  the  most  part 
preserved,  are  such  as  might  naturally  have  been  pro- 
duced by  living  chiefly  in  the  company  of  his  elders, 
and  reading,  or  hearing  read  to  him  before  he  could 
read  himself,  books  suited  to  a  more  advanced  age. 
His  boyish  friendships  were  strong  and  numerous. 
It  is  needless  here  to  enumerate  the  names  of  those 
Winchester  schoolfellows  of  whose  after  years  it  was 
the  pride  and  delight  to  watch  the  course  of  their 
companion  through  life ;  but  the  fond  recollections, 
which  were  long  cherished  on  both  sides,  of  his  inter- 
course with  his  earliest  friend  at  Warminster,  of  whom 
he  saw  and  heard  nothing  from  that  time  till  he  was 
called  upon  in  1829  to  write  his  epitaph,  are  wortli 
recording,*  as  a  remarkable  instance  of  strong  impres- 
sions of  nobleness  of  character,  early  conceived  and 
long  retained. 

Both  as  a  boy  and  a  young  man  he  was  remarkable 
for  a  difficulty  in  early  rising,  amounting  almost  to  a 
constitutional  infirmity  ;  and  though  his  after  life  will 
show  how  completely  this  was  overcome  by  habit,  yet 
he  often  said  that  early  rising  was  a  daily  effort  to  him, 

*  See  Letter  on  the  death  of  George  Evelyn,  in  1828. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  19 

and  that  in  this  instance  he  never  found  the  truth  of 
the  usual  rule,  that  all  things  are  made  easy  by  custom. 
With  this,  however,  was  always  united  great  occasional 
energy  ;  and  one  of  his  schoolfellows  gives  it  as  his  im- 
pression of  him,  that  "  he  was  stiff  in  his  opinions,  and 
utterly  immovable  by  force  or  fraud,  when  he  had  made 
up  his  mind,  whether  right  or  wrong." 

It  is  curious  to  trace  the  beginnings  of  some  of  his 
later  interests  in  his  earliest  amusements  and  occupa- 
tions. He  never  lost  the  recollection  of  the  impression 
produced  upon  him  by  the  excitement  of  naval  and 
military  affairs,  of  which  he  naturally  saw  and  heard 
much  by  living  at  the  Isle  of  Wight  in  the  time  of  the 
war ;  and  the  sports  in  which  he  took  most  pleasure, 
with  the  few  playmates  of  his  childhood,  were  in  sail- 
ing rival  fleets  in  his  father's  garden,  or  acting  the 
battles  of  the  Homeric  heroes  with  whatever  imple- 
ments he  could  use  as  spear  and  shield,  and  reciting 
their  several  speeches  from  Pope's  translation  of  the 
Iliad.  He  was  from  his  earliest  years  extremely  fond 
of  ballad  poetry,  which  his  Winchester  schoolfellows 
used  to  learn  from  his  repetition  before  they  had  seen 
it  in  print ;  and  his  own  compositions  as  a  boy  all  ran 
in  the  same  direction.  A  play  of  this  kind,  in  which 
his  schoolfellows  were  introduced  as  the  dramatis  per- 
sonse,  and  a  long  poem  of  "  Simon  de  Montfort,"  in 
imitation  of  Scott's  Marmion,  procured  for  him  at 
school,  by  way  of  distinction  from  another  boy  of  the 
same  name,  the  appellation  of  Poet  Arnold.  And  the 
earliest  specimen  of  his  composition  which  has  been 
preserved  is  a  little  tragedy,  written  before  he  was 
seven  years  old,  on  "  Piercy,  Earl  of  Northumber- 
land," suggested  apparently  by  Home's  play  of  Doug- 
las ;  which,  however,  contains  nothing  worthy  of  no- 
tice, except,  perhaps,  the  accuracy  of  orthography, 
language,  and  blank-verse  metre,  in  which  it  is  writ- 
ten, and  the  precise  arrangement  of  the  different  acts 
and  scenes. 

He  was,  however,  most  remarked  for  his  forwardness 


20  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

in  history  and  geography.  It  was  on  these  subjects 
that  he  chiefly  gave  early  indications  of  that  strong 
power  of  memory  which,  though  in  later  years  it  de- 
pended mainly  on  association,  used  to  show  itself  in 
very  minute  details,  extending  to  the  exact  state  of 
the  weather  on  particular  days,  or  the  exact  words 
and  position  of  passages  which  he  had  not  seen  for 
twenty  years.  One  of  the  few  recollections  which  he 
retained  of  his  father  was,  that  he  received  from  him, 
at  three  years  old,  a  present  of  Smollett's  History  of 
England,  as  a  reward  for  the  accuracy  with  which  he 
had  gone  through  the  stories  connected  with  the  por- 
traits and  pictures  of  the  successive  reigns  ;  and  at  the 
same  age  he  used  to  sit  at  his  aunt's  table  arranging 
his  geographical  cards,  and  recognizing  by  their  shape 
at  a  glance  the  different  counties  of  the  dissected  map 
of  England. 

He  long  retained  a  grateful  remembrance  of  the 
miscellaneous  books  to  which  he  had  access  in  the 
school  library  at  Warminster,  and  when,  in  his  Pro- 
fessorial chair  at  Oxford,  he  quoted  Dr.  Priestley's 
Lectures  on  History,  it  was  from  his  recollection  of 
what  he  had  there  read  when  he  was  eight  years  old. 
At  Winchester  he  was  a  diligent  student  of  Russell's 
Modern  Europe  ;  Gibbon  and  Mitford  he  had  read 
twice  over  before  he  left  school ;  and  amongst  the 
comments  on  his  reading  and  the  bursts  of  political 
enthusiasm  on  the  events  of  the  day  in  which  he  in- 
dulged in  his  Winchester  letters,  it  is  curious,  as  con- 
nected with  his  later  labors,  to  read  his  indignation, 
when  fourteen  years  old,  "  at  the  numerous  boasts 
which  are  everywhere  to  be  met  with  in  the  Latin 
writers."  "  I  verily  believe,"  he  adds,  "  that  half  at 
least  of  the  Roman  history  is,  if  not  totally  false,  at 
least  scandalously  exaggerated  :  how  far  different  are 
the  modest,  unaffected,  and  impartial  narrations  of 
Herodotus,  Thucydides,  and  Xenophon." 

The  period  both  of  his  home  and  school  education 
was  too  short  to  exercise  much  influence  upon  his 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  21 

after  life.  But  he  always  looked  back  upon  it  with  a 
marked  tenderness.  The  keen  sense  which  he  enter- 
tained of  the  bond  of  relationship  and  of  early  asso- 
ciation, —  not  the  less  from  the  blank  in  his  own  do- 
mestic recollections,  occasioned  by  his  father's  death 
and  his  own  subsequent  removal  from  the  Isle  of 
Wight,  —  invested  with  a  peculiar  interest  the  scenes 
and  companions  of  his  childhood.  His  strong  domes- 
tic affections  had  acted  as  an  important  safeguard  to 
him,  when  he  was  thrown  at  so  early  an  age  into  the 
new  sphere  of  an  Oxford  life  ;  and  when,  in  later 
years,  he  was  left  the  head  of  the  family,  he  delighted 
in  gathering  round  him  the  remains  of  his  father's 
household,  and  in  treasuring  up  every  particular  relat- 
ing to  his  birthplace  and  parentage,  even  to  the  graves 
of  the  older  generations  of  the  family  in  the  parish 
church  at  Lowestoff,  and  the  great  willow-tree  in  his 
father's  grounds  at  Slattwoods,  from  which  he  trans- 
planted shoots  successively  to  Laleham,  to  Rugby,  and 
to  Fox  How.  Every  date  in  the  family  history,  with 
the  alteration  of  hereditary  names,  and  the  changes  of 
their  residence,  was  carefully  preserved  for  his  children 
in  his  own  handwriting,  and  when  in  after  years  he 
fixed  on  the  abode  of  his  old  age  in  Westmoreland,  it 
was  his  great  delight  to  regard  it  as  a  continuation  of 
*his  own  early  home  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  And  when, 
as  was  his  wont,  he  used  to  look  back  from  time  to 
time  over  the  whole  of  this  period,  it  was  with  the 
solemn  feeling  which  is  expressed  in  one  of  his  later 
journals,  written  on  a  visit  to  the  place  of  his  earliest 
school  education,  in  the  interval  between  the  close  of 
his  life  at  Laleham  and  the  beginning  of  his  work  at 
Rugby.  "  Warminster,  January  5th  [1828].  I  have 
not  written  this  date  for  more  than  twenty  years,  and 
how  little  could  I  foresee,  when  I  wrote  it  last,  what 
would  happen  to  me  in  the  interval.  And  now  to  look 
forward  twenty  years  —  how  little  can  I  guess  of  that 
also.  Only  may  He  in  whose  hands  are  time  and  eter- 
nity, keep  me  evermore  his  own  ;  that  whether  I  live, 


LIFE   OF   DR.    ARNOLD. 


I  may  live  unto  Him ;  or  whether  I  die,  I  may  die 
unto  him  ;  may  He  guide  me  with  His  counsel,  and 
after  that  receive  me  to  glory  through  Jesus  Christ 
our  Saviour." 


In  1811,  in  his  sixteenth  year,  he  was  elected  as  a 
scholar  at  Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford ;  in  1814, 
his  name  was  placed  in  the  first  class  in  Litterse  Hu- 
maniores  ;  in  the  next  year  he  was  elected  Fellow  of 
Oriel  College  ;  and  he  gained  the  Chancellor's  prize 
for  the  two  University  Essays,  Latin  and  English,  for 
the  years  1815  and  1817.  Those  who  know  the  influ- 
ence which  his  college  friendships  exercised  over  his 
after  life,  and  the  deep  affection  which  he  always  bore 
to  Oxford,  as  the  scene  of  the  happiest  recollections  of 
his  youth,  and  the  sphere  which  he  hoped  to  occupy 
with  the  employments  of  his  old  age,  will  rejoice  in 
the  possession  of  the  following  record  of  his  under- 
graduate life  by  that  true  and  early  friend,  to  whose 
timely  advice,  protection,  and  example,  at  the  critical 
period  when  he  was  thrown  with  all  the  spirits  and 
the  inexperience  of  boyhood  on  the  temptations  of  the 
University,  he  always  said  and  felt,  that  "  he  had  owed 
more  than  to  any  other  man  in  the  world." 


LETTER  FROM  MR.   JUSTICE   COLERIDGE. 

Heath's  Court,  September,  1843. 
MY  DEAR  STANLEY, — 

When  you  informed  me  of  Mrs.  Arnold's  wish  that 
I  would  contribute  to  your  memoir  of  our  dear  friend, 
Dr.  Arnold,  such  recollections  as  I  had  of  his  career 
as  an  undergraduate  at  Oxford,  with  the  intimation 
that  they  were  intended  to  fill  up  that  chapter  in  his 
life,  my  only  hesitation  in  complying  with  her  wish 
arose  from  my  doubts  whether  my  impressions  were 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  23 

so  fresh  and  true,  or  my  powers  of  expression  such  as 
to  enable  me  to  do  justice  to  the  subject.  A  true  and 
lively  picture  of  him  at  that  time  would  be,  I  am  sure, 
interesting  in  itself;  and  I  felt  certain  also  that  his 
Oxford  residence  contributed  essentially  to  the  forma- 
tion of  his  character  in  after  life.  My  doubts  remain ; 
but  I  have  not  thought  them  important  enough  to  pre- 
vent my  endeavoring  at  least  to  comply  with  her  re- 
quest ;  nor  will  I  deny  that  I  promise  myself  much 
pleasure,  melancholy  though  it  may  be,  in  this  attempt 
to  recall  those  days.  They  had  their  troubles,  I  dare 
say,  but  in  retrospect  they  always  appear  to  me  among 
the  brightest  and  least  checkered,  if  not  the  most  use- 
ful, which  have  ever  been  vouchsafed  to  me. 

Arnold  and  I,  as  you  know,  were  undergraduates  of 
Corpus  Christi,  a  college  very  small  in  its  numbers  and 
humble  in  its  buildings,  but  to  which  we  and  our  fel- 
low-students formed  an  attachment  never  weakened  in 
the  after  course  of  our  lives.  At  the  time  I  speak  of, 
1809,  and  thenceforward  for  some  few  years,  it  was 
under  the  presidency,  mild  and  inert,  rather  than  pa- 
ternal, of  Dr.  Cooke.  His  nephew,  Dr.  Williams,  was 
the  vice-president  and  medical  fellow,  the  only  lay  fel- 
low permitted  by  the  statutes.  Retired  he  was  in  his 
habits,  and  not  forward  to  interfere  with  the  pursuits 
or  studies  of  the  young  men.  But  I  am  bound  to 
record  not  only  his  learning  and  good  taste,  but  the 
kindness  of  his  heart,  and  his  readiness  to  assist  them 
by  advice  and  criticism  in  their  compositions.  When 
I  wrote  for  the  Latin  verse  prize,  in  1810,  I  was  much 
indebted  to  him  for  advice  in  matters  of  taste  and 
Latinity,  and  for  the  pointing  out  many  faults  in  my 
rough  verses. 

Our  tutors  were  the  present  Sedleian  Professor,  the 
Rev.  G.  L.  Cooke,  and  the  lately  deceased  President, 
the  Rev.  T.  Bridges.  Of  the  former,  because  he  is 
alive,  I  will  only  say  that  I  believe  no  one  ever  at- 
tended his  lectures  without  learning  to  admire  his 
unwearied  industry,  patience,  and  good  temper,  and 


24  LIFE  OF  DR.  ABNOLD. 

that  few,  if  any,  quitted  his  pupil-room  without  re- 
taining a  kindly  feeling  towards  him.  The  recent 
death  of  Dr.  Bridges  would  have  affected  Arnold  as  it 
has  me  :  he  was  a  most  amiable  man ;  the  affectionate 
earnestness  of  his  manner,  and  his  high  tone  of  feel- 
ing, fitted  him  especially  to  deal  with  young  men ;  lie 
made  us  always  desirous  of  pleasing  him  ;  perhaps  his 
fault  was  that  lie  was  too  easily  pleased  ;  I  am  sure 
that  he  will  be  long  and  deeply  regretted  in  the  Uni- 
versity. 

It  was  riot,  however,  so  much  by  the  authorities  of 
the  college  that  Arnold's  character  was  affected,  as  by 
its  constitution  and  system,  and  by  the  residents  whom 
it  was  his  fortune  to  associate  with  familiarly  there. 
I  shall  hardly  do  justice  to  my  subject,  unless  I  state 
a  few  particulars  as  to  the  former,  and  what  I  am 
at  liberty  to  mention  as  to  the  latter.  Corpus  is  a 
very  small  establishment,  —  twenty  fellows  and  twenty 
scholars,  with  four  exhibitioners,  form  the  foundation. 
No  independent  members  were  admitted  except  gen- 
tlemen commoners,  and  they  were  limited  to  six.  Of 
the  scholars,  several  were  bachelors,  and  the  whole 
number  of  students  actually  under  college  tuition  sel- 
dom exceeded  twenty.  But  the  scholarships,  though 
not  entirely  open,  were  yet  enough  so  to  admit  of 
much  competition  ;  their  value,  and  still  more,  the 
creditable  strictness  and  impartiality  with  which  the 
examinations  were  conducted,  (qualities  at  that  time 
more  rare  in  college  elections  than  now,)  insured  a 
number  of  good  candidates  for  each  vacancy,  and  we 
boasted  a  more  than  proportionate  share  of  successful 
competitors  for  university  honors.  It  had  been  gener- 
ally understood,  (I  know  not  whether  the  statutes 
prescribe  the  practice,)  that  in  the  examinations  a 
large  allowance  was  made  for  youth  ;  certain  it  was 
that  we  had  many  very  young  candidates,  and  that  of 
these,  many  remarkable  for  early  proficiency  succeeded. 
We  were  then  a  small  society,  the  members  rather  un- 
der the  usual  age,  and  with  more  than  the  ordinary 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  25 

proportion  of  ability  and  scholarship  ;  our  mode  of 
tuition  was  in  harmony  with  these  circumstances  ;  not 
by  private  lectures,  but  in  classes  of  such  a  size  as  ex- 
cited emulation,  and  made  us  careful  in  the  exact  and 
neat  rendering  of  the  original,  yet  not  so  numerous  as 
to  prevent  individual  attention  on  the  tutor's  part,  and 
familiar  knowledge  of  each  pupil's  turn  and  talents. 
In  addition  to  the  books  read  in  lecture,  the  tutor  at 
the  beginning  of  the  term  settled  with  each  student 
upon  some  book  to  be  read  by  himself  in  private,  and 
prepared  for  the  public  examination  at  the  end  of  the 
term  in  Hall ;  and  with  this  book  something  on  paper, 
either  analysis  of  it,  or  remarks  upon  it,  was  expected 
to  be  produced,  which  insured  that  the  book  should 
have  really  been  read.  It  has  often  struck  me  since, 
that  this  whole  plan,  whicn  is  now  I  believe  in  com- 
mon use  in  the  University,  was  well  devised  for  the 
tuition  of  young  men  of  our  age.  We  were  not  en- 
tirely set  free  from  the  leading-strings  of  the  school ; 
accuracy  was  cared  for  ;  we  were  accustomed  to  vivd 
voce  rendering,  and  vivd  voce  question  and  answer 
in  our  lecture-room,  before  an  audience  of  fellow-stu- 
donts,  whom  we  sufficiently  respected  ;  at  the  same 
time,  the  additional  reading  trusted  to  ourselves  alone 
prepared  us  for  accurate  private  study,  and  for  our 
final  exhibition  in  the  schools. 

One  result  of  all  these  circumstances  was,  that  we 
lived  on  the  most  familiar  terms  with  each  other :  we 
might  be,  indeed  w,e  were,  somewhat  boyish  in  man- 
ner, and  in  the  liberties  we  took  with  each  other  ;  but 
our  interest  in  literature,  ancient  and  modern,  and  in 
all  the  stirring  matters  of  that  stirring  time,  was  not 
boyish ;  we  debated  the  classic  and  romantic  question ; 
we  discussed  poetry  and  history,  logic  and  philosophy  ; 
or  we  fought  over  the  Peninsular  battles  and  the 
Continental  campaigns  with  the  energy  of  disputants 
personally  concerned  in  them.  Our  habits  were  inex- 
pensive and  temperate :  one  break-up  party  was  held 
in  the  junior  common  room  at  the  end  of  each  term,  in 

VOL.    I  3 


26  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

•which  we  indulged  our  genius  more  freely,  and  our 
merriment,  to  say  the  truth,  was  somewhat  exuberant 
and  noisy ;  but  the  authorities  wisely  forbore  too 
strict  an  inquiry  into  this. 

It  was  one  of  the  happy  peculiarities  of  Corpus  that 
the  bachelor  scholars  were  compelled  to  residence. 
This  regulation,  seemingly  inconvenient,  but  most 
wholesome  as  I  cannot  but  think  for  themselves,  and 
now  unwisely  relaxed,  operated  very  beneficially  on 
1.he  undergraduates ;  with  the  best  and  the  most  ad- 
vanced of  these  they  associated  very  usefully :  I  speak 
here  with  grateful  and  affectionate  remembrances  of 
the  privileges  which  I  enjoyed  in  this  way. 

You  will  see  that  a  society  thus  circumstanced  was 
exactly  one  most  likely  to  influence  strongly  the  char- 
acter of  such  a  lad  as  Arnold  was  at  his  election.  He 
came  to  us  in  Lent  Term,  1811,  from  Winchester,  win- 
ning his  election  against  several  very  respectable  can- 
didates. He  was  a  mere  boy  in  appearance  as  well  as 
in  age  ;  but  we  saw  in  a  very  short  time  that  he  was 
quite  equal  to  take  his  part  in  the  arguments  of  the 
common  room  ;  and  he  was,  I  rather  think,  admitted 
by  Mr.  Cooke  at  once  into  his  senior  class.  As  he  was 
equal,  so  was  he  ready  to  take  part  in  our  discussions : 
he  was  fond  of  conversation  on  serious  matters,  and 
vehement  in  argument ;  fearless  too  in  advancing  his 
opinions  —  which,  to  say  the  truth,  often  startled  us  a 
good  deal ;  but  he  was  ingenuous  and  candid,  and 
though  the  fearlessness  with  which,  so  young  as  he 
was,  he  advanced  his  opinions  might  have  seemed  to 
betoken  presumption,  yet  the  good  temper  with  which 
he  bore  retort  or  rebuke  relieved  him  from  that  impu- 
tation ;  he  was  bold  and  warm,  because  so  far  as  his 
knowledge  went  he  saw  very  clearly,  and  he  was  an 
ardent  lover  of  truth,  but  I  never  saw  in  him  even 
then  a  grain  of  vanity  or  conceit.  I  have  said  that 
some  of  his  opinions  startled  us  a  good  deal ;  we  were 
indeed  for  the  most  part  Tories  in  Church  and  State, 
great  respecters  of  things  as  they  were,  and  not  very 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  27 

tolerant  of  the  disposition  which  he  brought  with  him 
to  question  their  wisdom.  Many  and  long  were  the 
conflicts  we  had,  and  with  unequal  numbers.  I  think 
I  have  seen  all  the  leaders  of  the  common  room 
engaged  with  him  at  once,  with  little  order  or  consid- 
eration, as  may  be  supposed,  and  not  always  with 
great  scrupulosity  as  to  the  fairness  of  our  arguments. 
This  was  attended  by  no  loss  of  regard,  and  scarcely 
ever,  or  seldom,  by  even  momentary  loss  of  temper. 
We  did  not  always  convince  him  —  perhaps  we  ought 
not  always  to  have  done  so  —  yet  in  the  end  a  consid- 
erable modification  of  his  opinions  was  produced ;  in 
one  of  his  letters  to  me,  written  at  a  much  later  period, 
he  mentions  this  change.  In  truth,  there  were  those 
among  us  calculated  to  produce  an  impression  on  his 
affectionate  heart  and  ardent,  ingenuous  mind  ;  and 
the  rather  because  the  more  we  saw  of  him,  and  the 
more  we  battled  with  him,  the  more  manifestly  did  we 
respect  and  love  him.  The  feeling  with  which  we 
argued  gave  additional  power  to  our  arguments  over  a 
disposition  such  as  his ;  and  thus  he  became  attached 
to  young  men  of  the  most  different  tastes  and  intel- 
lects ;  his  love  for  each  taking  a  different  color,  more 
or  less  blended  with  respect,  fondness,  or  even  humor, 
according  to  those  differences ;  and  in  return  they  all 
uniting. in  love  and  respect  for  him. 

There  will  be  some  few  to  whom  these  remem- 
brances will  speak  with  touching  truth ;  they  will 
remember  his  single-hearted  and  devout  schoolfellow, 
who  early  gave  up  his  native  land,  and  devoted  himself 
to  the  missionary  cause  in  India  ;  the  high-souled  and 
imaginative,  though  somewhat  indolent  lad,  who  came 
to  us  from  Westminster  —  one  bachelor,  whose  father's 
connection  with  the  House  of  Commons,  and  resi- 
dence in  Palace  Yard,  made  him  a  great  authority 
with  us  as  to  the  world  without,  and  the  statesmen 
whose  speeches  he  sometimes  heard,  but  we  discussed 
much  as  if  they  had  been  personages  in  history ;  and 
whose  remarkable  love  for  historical  and  geographical 


28  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

research,  and  his  proficiency  in  it,  with  his  clear  judg- 
ment, quiet  %humor,  and  mildness  in  communicating 
information,  made  him  peculiarly  attractive  to  Ar- 
nold ;  —  and  above  all,  our  senior  among  the  under- 
graduates, though  my  junior  in  years,  the  author  of 
the  Christian  Year,  who  came  fresh  from  the  single 
teaching  of  his  venerable  father,  and  achieved  the 
highest  honors  of  the  University  at  an  age  when 
others  frequently  are  but  on  her  threshold.  Arnold 
clung  to  all  these  with  equal  fidelity,  but  regarded 
each  with  different  feelings  ;  each  produced  on  him  a 
salutary,  but  different  effect.  His  love  for  all  without 
exception  I  know,  if  I  know  anything  of  another  man's 
heart,  continued  to  his  life's  end  ;  it  survived  (how 
can  the  mournful  facts  be  concealed  in  any  complete 
and  truth-telling  narrative  of  his  life  ?)  separation, 
suspension  of  intercourse,  and  entire  disagreement  of 
opinion,  with  the  last  of  these,  on  points  believed  by 
them  both  to  be  of  essential  importance.  These  two 
held  their  opinions  with  a  zeal  and  tenacity  propor- 
tionate to  their  importance  ;  each  believed  the  other 
in  error  pernicious  to  the  faith  and  dangerous  to  him- 
self ;  and  what  they  believed  sincerely,  each  thought 
himself  bound  to  state,  and  stated  it  openly,  it  may  be 
with  too  much  of  warmth ;  and  unguarded  expres- 
sions were  unnecessarily,  I  think  inaccurately,  re- 
ported. Such  disagreements  in  opinion  between  the 
wise  and  good  are  incident  to  our  imperfect  state ;  and 
even  the  good  qualities  of  the  heart,  earnestness,  want 
of  suspicion,  may  lay  us  open  to  them  ;  but  in  the 
case  before  me  the  affectionate  interest  with  which 
each  regarded  the  other  never  ceased.  I  had  the 
good  fortune  to  retain  the  intimate  friendship  and  cor- 
respondence of  both,  and  I  can  testify  with  author- 
ity that  the  elder  spoke  and  wrote  of  the  younger  as 
an  elder  brother  might  of  a  younger  whom  he  ten- 
derly loved,  though  he  disapproved  of  his  course  ; 
while  it  was  not  in  Arnold's  nature  to  forget  how 
much  he  had  owed  to  Keble :  he  bitterly  lamented, 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  29 

what  he  labored  to  avert,  the  suspension  of  their  inti- 
mate intercourse ;  he  was  at  all  times  anxious  to 
renew  it ;  and  although,  where  the  disagreement 
turned  on  points  so  vital  between  men  who  held  each 
to  his  own  so  conscientiously,  this  may  have  been  too 
much  to  expect,  yet  it  is  a  most  gratifying  thought  to 
their  common  friends  that  they  would  probably  have 
met  at  Fox  How  under  Arnold's  roof,  but  a  few  weeks 
after  he  was  called  away  to  that  state  in  which  the 
doubts  and  controversies  of  this  life  will  receive  their 
clear  resolution. 

I  return  from  my  digression  :  —  Arnold  came  to  us 
of  course  not  a  formed  scholar,  nor,  I  think,  did  he 
leave  the  college  with  scholarship  proportioned  to  his 
great  abilities  and  opportunities.  And  this  arose  in 
part  from  the  decided  preference  which  he  gave  to  the 
philosophers  and  historians  of  antiquity  over  the  poets, 
coupled  with  the  distinction  which  he  then  made, 
erroneous  as  I  think,  and  certainly  extreme  in  degree, 
between  words  and  things,  as  he  termed  it.  His  cor- 
respondence with  me  will  show  how  much  he  modified 
this  too  in  after  life  ;  but  at  that  time  he  was  led  by  it 
to  undervalue  those  niceties  of  language,  the  intimate 
acquaintance  with  which  he  did  not  then  perceive  to 
be  absolutely  necessary  to  a  precise  knowledge  of  the 
meaning  of  the  author-  His  compositions,  therefore, 
at  this  time,  though  full  of  matter,  did  not  give  prom- 
ise of  that  clear  and  spirited  style  which  he  after- 
wards mastered  ;  he  gained  no  verse  prize,  but  was 
an  unsuccessful  competitor  for  the  Latin  verse  in  the 
year  1812,  when  Henry  Latham  succeeded,  the  third 
brother  of  that  house  who  had  done  so  ;  and  though 
this  is  the  only  occasion  on  which  I  have  any  memo- 
randum of  his  writing,  I  do  not  doubt  that  he  made 
other  attempts.  Among  us  were  several  who  were 
fond  of  writing  English  verse ;  Keble  was  even  then 
raising  among  us  those  expectations,  which  he  has 
since  so  fully  justified,  and  Arnold  was  not  slow  to 
follow  the  example.  I  have  several  poems  of  his  writ- 

3* 


30  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

ten  about  this  time,  neat  and  pointed  in  expression, 
and  just  in  thought,  but  not  remarkable  for  fancy  or 
imagination.  I  remember  some  years  after  his  telling 
me  that  he  continued  the  practice  "  on  principle ;  "  he 
thought  it  a  useful  and  humanizing  exercise. 

But,  though  not  a  poet  himself,  he  was  not  insensi- 
ble of  the  beauties  of  poetry  —  far  from  it.  I  reflect 
with  some  pleasure,  that  I  first  introduced  him  to 
what  has  been  somewhat  unreasonably  called  the  Lake 
Poetry  :  my  near  relation  to  one,  and  connection  with 
another  of  the  poets,  whose  works  were  so  called,  were 
the  occasion  of  this ;  and  my  uncle  having  sent  me  the 
Lyrical  Ballads,  and  the  first  edition  of  Mr.  .Words- 
worth's poems,  they  became  familiar  among  us.  We 
were  proof,  I  am  glad  to  think,  against  the  criticism, 
if  so  it  might  be  called,  of  the  "  Edinburgh  Review  ;  " 
we  felt  their  truth  and  beauty,  and  became  zealous  dis- 
ciples of  Wordsworth's  philosophy.  This  was  of  pecu- 
liar advantage  to  Arnold,  whose  leaning  was  too  direct 
for  the  practical  and  evidently  useful  —  it  brought  out 
in  him  that  feeling  for  the  lofty  and  imaginative  which 
appeared  in  all  his  intimate  conversation,  and  may  be 
seen  spiritualizing  those  even  of  his  writings,  in  which, 
from  their  subject,  it  might  seem  to  have  less  place. 
You  know  in  later  life  how  much  he  thought  his 
beloved  Fox  How  enhanced  in  value  by  its  neighbor- 
hood to  Rydal  Mount,  and  what  store  he  set  on  the 
privilege  of  frequent  and  friendly  converse  with  the 
venerable  genius  of  that  sweet  spot. 

But  his  passion  at  the  time  I  am  treating  of  was  for 
Aristotle  and  Thucydides  ;  and  however  he  became 
some  few  years  after  more  sensible  of  the  importance 
of  the  poets  in  classic  literature,  this  passion  he  re- 
tained to  the  last ;  those  who  knew  him  intimately,  or 
corresponded  with  him,  will  bear  me  witness  how 
deeply  he  was  imbued  with  the  language  and  ideas 
of  the  former,  how  in  earnest  and  unreserved  conver- 
sation, or  in  writing,  his  train  of  thoughts  was  affected 
by  the  Ethics  and  Rhetoric,  how  he  cited  the  maxims 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  31 

of  the  Stagyrite  as  oracles,  and  how  his  language  was 
quaintly  and  racily  pointed  with  phrases  from  him.  I 
never  knew  a  man  who  made  such  familiar,  even  fond 
use  of  an  author  :  it  is  scarcely  too  much  to  say,  that 
he  spoke  of  him  as  of  one  intimately  and  affectionately 
known  and  valued  by  him  ;  and  when  he  was  select- 
ing his  son's  University,  with  much  leaning  for  Cam- 
bridge, and  many  things  which  at  the  time  made  him 
incline  against  Oxford,  dearly  as  he  loved  her,  Aris- 
totle turned  the  scale ;  "  I  could  not  consent,"  said 
he,  "  to  send  my  son  to  a  University  where  he  would 
lose  the  study  of  him  altogether."  "  You  may  be- 
lieve," he  said  with  regard  to  the  London  University, 
"  that  I  have  not  forgotten  the  dear  old  Stagyrite  in 
our  examinations,  and  I  hope  that  he  will  be  construed 
and  discussed  in  Somerset  House  as  well  as  in  the 
schools."  His  fondness  for  Thucydides  first  prompted 
a  Lexicon  Thucydideum,  in  which  he  made  some  pro- 
gress at  Laleham  in  1821  and  1822,  and  ended  as  you 
know  in  his  valuable  edition  of  that  author. 

Next  to  these  he  loved  Herodotus.  I  have  said  that 
he  was  not,  while  I  knew  him  at  Oxford,  a  formed 
scholar,  and  that  he  composed  stiffly  and  with  diffi- 
culty, but  to  this  there  was  a  seeming  exception ;  he 
had  so  imbued  himself  with,  the  style  of  Herodotus 
and  Thucydides,  that  he  could  write  narratives  in  the 
style  of  either  at  pleasure  with  wonderful  readiness, 
and  as  we  thought  with  the  greatest  accuracy.  I 
remember,  too,  an  account  by  him  of  a  Vacation  Tour 
in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  after  the  manner  of  the  Anabasis. 

Arnold's  bodily  recreations  were  walking  and  bath- 
ing. It  was  a  particular  delight  to  him,  with  two  or 
three  companions,  to  make  what  he  called  a  skirmish 
across  the  country  ;  on  these  occasions  we  deserted  the 
road,  crossed  fences,  and  leaped  ditches,  or  fell  into 
them :  he  enjoyed  the  country  round  Oxford,  and 
while  out  in  this  way  his  spirits  would  rise  and  his 
mirth  overflowed.  Though  delicate  in  appearance, 
and  not  giving  promise  of  great  muscular  strength,  yet 


32  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

his  form  was  light,  and  he  was  capable  of  going  long 
distances  and  bearing  much  fatigue. 

You  know  that  to  his  last  moment  of  health  he  had 
the  same  predilections ;  indeed  he  was,  as  much  as  any 
I  ever  knew,  one  whose  days  were 

.  "  Bound  each  to  each  by  natural  piety." 

His  manner  had  all  the  tastes  and  feelings  of  his  youth, 
only  more  developed  and  better  regulated.  The  same 
passion  for  the  sea  and  shipping,  and  his  favorite  Isle 
of  Wight,  the  same  love  for  external  nature,  the  same 
readiness  in  viewing  the  characteristic  features  of  a 
country  and  its  marked  positions,  or  the  most  beautiful 
points  of  a  prospect,  for  all  which  he  was  remarkable 
in  after  life,  we  noticed  in  him  then.  When  Professor 
Buckland,  then  one  of  our  Fellows,  began  his  career  in 
that  science,  to  the  advancement  of  which  he  has  con- 
tributed so  much,  Arnold  became  one  of  his  most  ear- 
nest and  intelligent  pupils,  and  you  know  how  famil- 
iarly and  practically  he  applied  geological  facts  in  all 
his  later  years. 

In  June,  1812, 1  was  elected  Fellow  of  Exeter  Col- 
lege, and  determined  to  pursue  the  law  as  my  profes- 
sion :  my  residence  at  Oxford  was  thenceforward  only 
occasional ;  but  the  friendship  which  had  grown  up 
between  us  suffered  no  diminution.  Something,  I  for- 
get now  the  particular  circumstance,  led  to  an  inter- 
change of  letters,  which  ripened  into  a  correspondence, 
continued  with  rather  unusual  regularity,  when  our 
respective  occupations  are  considered,  to  within  a  few 
days  of  his  death.  It  may  show  the  opinion  which  I 
even  then  entertained  of  him,  that  I  carefully  pre- 
served from  the  beginning  every  letter  which  I  ever 
received  from  him :  you  have  had  an  opportunity  of 
judging  of  the  value  of  the  collection. 

After  I  had  ceased  to  reside,  a  small  debating  society 
called  the  Attic  Society  was  formed  in  Oxford,*  which 

It  In  this  society  he  formed  or  confirmed  his  acquaintance  with  a  ne>» 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  33 

held  its  meetings  in  the  rooms  of  the  members  by 
turns.  Arnold  was  among  the  earliest  members,  and 
was,  I  believe,  an  embarrassed  speaker.  This  I  should 
have  expected  ;  for,  however  he  might  appear  a  confi- 
dent advancer  of  his  own  opinions,  he  was  in  truth 
bashful,  and  at  the  same  time  had  so  acute  a  percep- 
tion of  what  was  ill-seasoned  or  irrelevant,  that  he 
would  want  that  freedom  from  restraint  which  is  essen- 
tial at  least  to  young  speakers.  This  society  was  the 
germ  of  the  Union,  but  I  believe  he  never  belonged 
to  it. 

In  our  days  the  religious  controversies  had  not  be- 
gun, by  which  the  minds  of  young  men  at  Oxford  are, 
I  fear,  now  prematurely  and  too  much  occupied ;  the 
routine  theological  studies  of  the  University  were,  I 
admit,  deplorably  low,  but  the  e?rnest  ones  amongst  us 
were  diligent  readers  of  Barrow,  Hooker,  and  Taylor. 
Arnold  was  among  these,  but  I  have  no  recollection  of 
anything  at  that  time  distinctive  in  his  religious  opin- 
ions. What  occurred  afterwards  does  not  properly  fall 
within  my  chapter,  yet  it  is  not  unconnected  with  it, 
and  I  believe  I  can  sum  up  all  that  need  be  said  on 
such  a  subject,  as  shortly  and  as  accurately,  from  the 
sources  of  information  in  my  hands,  as  any  other  per- 
son can.  His  was  an  anxiously  inquisitive  mind,  a 
scrupulously  conscientious  heart ;  his  inquiries,  pre- 
viously to  his  taking  orders,  led  him  on  to  distressing 
doubts  on  certain  points  in  the  Articles  ;  these  were 
not  low  nor  rationalistic  in  their  tendency,  according 
to  the  bad  sense  of  that  term ;  there  was  no  indis- 
position in  him  to  believe  merely  because  the  article 
transcended  his  reason  ;  he  doubted  the  proof  and  the 
interpretation  of  the  textual  authority.  His  state  was 
very  painful,  and  I  think  morbid  ;  for  I  remarked  that 


circle  of  friends,  chiefly  of  other  colleges,  whose  names  will  appear  in  the 
ensuing  correspondence  by  the  side  of  those  of  an  earlier  date  from  Corpus, 
and  of  a  somewhat  later  date  from  Oriel,  Mr.  Lowe,  Mr.  Hull,  Mr.  Randall, 
Mr.  Blackstone,  and  Mr.  Hare,  and  through  him  with  his  Cambridge 
brother,  now  Archdeacon  Hare. 

c 


34  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

the  two  occasions  on  which  I  was  privy  to  his  distress 
were  precisely  those  in  which  to  doubt  was  against  his 
dearest  schemes  of  worldly  happiness  ;•  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  this  seemed  to  make  him  distrustful  of 
the  arguments  which  were  intended  to  lead  his  mind 
to  acquiescence.  Upon  the  first  occasion  to  which  I 
allude,  he  was  a  Fellow  of  Oriel,  and  in  close  inter- 
course with  one  of  the  friends  I  have  before  men- 
tioned, then  also  a  Fellow  of  the  same  college  :  to  him 
as  well  as  to  me  he  opened  his  mind,  and  from  him  he 
received  the  wisest  advice,  wliich  he  had  the  wisdom 
to  act  upon  ;  he  was  bid  to  pause  in  his  inquiries,  to 
pray  earnestly  for  help  and  light  from  above,  and  turn 
himself  more  strongly  than  ever  to  the  practical  duties 
of  a  holy  life  ;  he  did  so,  and  through  severe  trials  was 
finally  blessed  with  perfect  peace  of  mind  and  a  settled 
conviction.  If  there  be  any  so  unwise  as  to  rejoice  that 
Arnold  in  his  youth  had  doubts  on  important  doc- 
trines, let  him  be  sobered  with  the  conclusion  of  those 
doubts,  when  Arnold's  mind  had  not  become  weaker, 
nor  his  pursuit  of  truth  less  honest  or  ardent,  but  when 
his  abilities  were  matured,  his  knowledge  greater,  his 
judgment  more  sober  ;  if  there  be  any  who,  in  youth, 
are  suffering  the  same  distress  which  befell  him,  let 
his  conduct  be  their  example,  and  the  blessing  which 
was  vouchsafed  to  him,  their  hope  and  consolation. 
In  a  letter  from  that  friend  to  myself,  of  the  date  of 
February  14,  1819, 1  find  the  following  extract,  which 
gives  so  true  and  so  considerate  an  account  of  this 
passage  in  Arnold's  life,  that  you  may  be  pleased  to 
insert  it. 

"  I  have  not  talked  with  Arnold  lately  on  the  dis- 
tressing thoughts  which  he  wrote  to  you  about,  but  I 
am  fearful,  from  his  manner  at  times,  that  he  has  by 
no  means  got  rid  of  them,  though  I  feel  quite  confi- 
dent that  all  will  be  well  in  the  end.  The  subject  of 
them  is  that  most  awful  one,  on  which  all  very  in- 
quisitive reasoning  minds  are,  I  believe,  most  liable  to 
such  temptations  —  I  mean  the  doctrine  of  the  blessed 


LIFE   OF  DR.  AENOLD.  35 

Trinity.  Bo  not  start,  my  dear  Coleridge  ;  I  do  not 
believe  that  Arnold  has  any  serious  scruples  of  the 
understanding  about  it,  but  it  is  a  defect  of  his  mind 
that  he  cannot  get  rid  of  a  certain  feeling  of  objec- 
tions —  and  particularly  when,  as  he  fancies,  the  bias 
is  so  strong  upon  him  to  decide  one  way  from  interest ; 
he  scruples  doing  what  I  advise  him,  which  is,  to  put 
down  the  objections  by  main  force  whenever  they  arise 
in  his  mind,  fearful  that  in  so  doing  he  shall  be  violat- 
ing his  conscience  for  a  maintenance'  sake.  I  am  still 
inclined  to  think  with  you  that  the  wisest  thing  he 
could  do  would  be  to  take  John  M.  (a  young  pupil 
whom  I  was  desirous  of  placing  under  his  care)  and  a 
curacy  somewhere  or  other,  and  cure  himself  not  by 
physic,  i.  e.  reading  and  controversy,  but  by  diet  and 
regimen,  i.  e.  holy  living.  In  the  mean  time  what  an 
excellent  fellow  he  is.  I  do  think  that  one  might 
safely  say,  as  some  one  did  of  some  other,  '  One  had 
better  have  Arnold's  doubts  than  most  men's  certain- 
ties.' "  * 

I  believe  I  have  exhausted  my  recollections  ;  and  if 
I  have  accomplished  as  I  ought  what  I  proposed  to 
myself,  it  will  be  hardly  necessary  for  me  to  sum  up 
formally  his  character  as  an  Oxford  undergraduate. 
At  the  commencement  a  boy — and  at  the  close  retain- 
ing, not  ungracefully,  much  of  boyish  spirits,  frolic, 
and  simplicity ;  in  mind  vigorous,  active,  clear-sighted, 
industrious,  and  daily  accumulating  and  assimilating 
treasures  of  knowledge  ;  not  averse  to  poetry,  but  de- 
lighting rather  in  dialectics,  philosophy,  and  history, 
with  less  of  imaginative  than  reasoning  power ;  in 
argument  bold  almost  to  presumption,  and  vehement ; 
in  temper  easily  roused  to  indignation,  yet  more  easily 
appeased  and  entirely  free  from  bitterness  ;  fired,  in- 
deed, by  what  he  deemed  ungenerous  or  unjust  to 
others,  rather  than  by  any  sense  of  personal  wrong ; 
somewhat  too  little  deferential  to  authority  ;  yet  with- 

*  On  this  subject  see,  further,  the  note  in  Chapter  IX. 


36  LIFE  OF  DR.  AENOLD. 

out  any  real  inconsistency  loving  what  was  good  and 
great  in  antiquity  the  more  ardently  and  reverently 
because  it  was  ancient ;  a  casual  or  unkind  observer 
might  have  pronounced  him  somewhat  too  pugnacious 
in  conversation  and  too  positive.  I  have  given,  I  be- 
lieve, the  true  explanation  ;  scarcely  anything  would 
have  pained  him  more  than  to  be  convinced  that  he 
had  been  guilty  of  want  of  modesty,  or  of  deference 
where  it  was  justly  due  ;  no  one  thought  these  virtues 
of  more  sacred  obligation.  In  heart,  if  I  can  speak 
with  confidence  of  any  of  the  friends  of  my  youth,  I 
can  of  his,  that  it  was  devout  and  pure,  simple,  sin- 
cere, affectionate,  and  faithful. 

It  is  time  that  I  should  close ;  already,  I  fear,  1 
have  dwelt  with  something  like  an  old  man's  prolixity 
on  passages  of  my  youth,  forgetting  that  no  one  can 
take  the  same  interest  in  them  which  I  do  myself: 
that  deep  personal  interest  must,  however,  be  my  ex- 
cuse. Whoever  sets  a  right  value  on  the  events  of 
his  life  for  good  or  for  evil,  will  agree  that  next  in  im- 
portance to  the  rectitude  of  his  own  course  and  the 
selection  of  his  partner  for  life,  and  far  beyond  all  the 
wealth  or  honors  which  may  reward  his  labor,  far  even 
beyond  the  unspeakable  gift  of  bodily  health,  are  the 
friendships  which  he  forms  in  youth.  That  is  the  sea- 
son when  natures  soft  and  pliant  grow  together,  each 
becoming  part  of  the  other,  and  colored  by  it ;  thus  to 
become  one  in  heart  with  the  good,  and  generous,  and 
devout,  is,  by  God's  grace,  to  become,  in  measure, 
good,  and  generous,  and  devout.  Arnold's  friendship 
has  been  one  of  the  many  blessings  of  my  life.  I 
cherish  the  memory  of  it  with  mournful  gratitude, 
and  I  cannot  but  dwell  with  lingering  fondness  on  the 
scene  and  the  period  which  first  brought  us  together. 
Within  the  peaceful  walls  of  Corpus  I  made  friends, 
of  whom  all  are  spared  me  but  Arnold  —  he  has  fallen 
asleep  —  but  the  bond  there  formed,  which  the  lapse 
of  years  and  our  differing  walks  in  life  did  not  un- 
loosen, and  which  strong  opposition  of  opinions  only 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  37 

rendered  more  intimate  ;  though  interrupted  in  time, 
I  feel  not  to  be  broken  —  may  I  venture,  without 
unseasonable  solemnity,  to  express  the  firm  trust,  that 
it  will  endure  forever  in  eternity. 

Believe  me,  my  dear  Stanley, 

Very  truly  yours, 
J.  T.  C. 


CHAPTER    II. 

LIFE   AT   LALEHAM. 

THE  society  of  the  Fellows  of  Oriel  College  then,  as  for 
some  time  afterwards,  numbered  amongst  its  members 
some  of  the  most  rising  men  in  the  University,  and  it 
is  curious  to  observe  the  list,  which,  when  the  youthful 
scholar  of  Corpus  was  added  to  it,  contained  the  names 
of  Copleston,  Davison,  Whately,  Keble,  Hawkins,  and 
Hampden,  and  shortly  after  he  left  it,  those  of  New- 
man and  Pusey,  the  former  of  whom  was  elected  into 
his  vacant  Fellowship.  Amongst  the  friends  with 
whom  he  thus  became  acquainted  for  the  first  time, 
may  chiefly  be  mentioned  Dr.  Hawkins,  since  Pro- 
vost of  Oriel,  to  whom  in  the  last  year  of  his  life  he 
dedicated  his  Lectures  on  Modern  History,  and  Dr. 
Whately,  afterwards  Principal  of  St.  Alban's  Hall, 
and  now  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  towards  whom  his 
regard  was  enhanced  by  the  domestic  intercourse 
which  was  constantly  interchanged  in  later  years  be- 
tween their  respective  families,  and  to  whose  writings 
and  conversations  he  took  an  early  opportunity  of 
expressing  his  obligations  in  the  Preface  to  his  first 
volume  of  Sermons,  in  speaking  of  the  various  points 
on  which  the  communication  of  his  friend's  views  had 


38  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

"  extended  or  confirmed  his  own."  For  the  next  four 
years  he  remained  at  Oxford  taking  private  pupils  and 
reading  extensively  in  the  Oxford  libraries,  an  advan- 
tage which  he  never  ceased  to  remember  gratefully 
himself,  and  to  impress  upon  others,  and  of  which  the 
immediate  results  remain  in  a  great  number  of  MSS., 
both  in  the  form  of  abstracts  of  other  works,  and  of 
original  sketches  on  history  and  theology.  They  are 
remarkable  rather  as  proofs  of  industry  than  of  power, 
and  the  style  of  all  his  compositions,  both  at  this  time 
and  for  some  years  later,  is  cramped  by  a  stiffness  and 
formality  alien  alike  to  the  homeliness  of  his  first  pub- 
lished works  and  the  vigor  of  his  later  ones,  and  strik- 
ingly recalling  his  favorite  lines, 

"  The  old  man  clogs  our  earlie* !;  years, 
And  simple  childhood  comes  the  last." 

But  already,  in  the  examination  of  the  Oriel  Fellow- 
ships, Dr.  Whately  had  pointed  out  to  the  other  elect- 
ors the  great  capability  of  "  growth "  which  he  be- 
lieved to  be  involved  in  the  crudities  of  the  youthful 
candidate's  exercises,  and  which,  even  in  points  where 
he  was  inferior  to  his  competitors,  indicated  an  ap- 
proaching superiority.  And  widely  different  as  were 
his  juvenile  compositions  in  many  points  from  those 
of  his  after  life,  yet  it  is  interesting  to  observe  in  them 
the  materials  which  those  who  knew  the  pressure  of 
his  numerous  avocations  used  to  wonder  when  he 
could  have  acquired,  and  to  trace  amidst  the  strangest 
contrast  of  his  general  thoughts  and  style  occasional 
remarks  of  a  higher  strain,  which  are  in  striking, 
though  in  some  instances  perhaps  accidental,  coinci- 
dence with  some  of  his  later  views.  He  endeavored 
in  his  historical  reading  to  follow  the  plan  which  he 
afterwards  recommended  in  his  Lectures,  of  making 
himself  thoroughly  master  of  some  one  period,  —  the 
15th  century,  with  Philip  de  Comines  as  his  text-book, 
seems  to  have  been  the  chief  sphere  of  his  studies,  — 
and  the  first  book  after  his  election  which  appears  in. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  39 

the  Oriel  library  as  taken  out  in  his  name,  is  Rymer's 
Fcedera.  Many  of  the  judgments  in  his  maturer  years 
on  Gibbon,  Livy,  and  Thucydides,  are  to  be  found  in  a 
MS.  of  1815,  in  which,  under  the  name  of  "  Thoughts 
on  History,"  he  went  through  the  characteristics  of 
the  chief  ancient  and  modern  historians.  And  it  is 
almost  startling,  in  the  midst  of  a  rhetorical  burst  of 
his  youthful  Toryism  in  a  journal  of  1815,  to  meet 
with  expressions  of  real  feeling  about  the  social  state 
of  England  such  as  might  have  been  written  in  his 
latest  years ;  or  amidst  the  commonplace  remarks 
which  accompany  an  analysis  of  St.  Paul's  Epistles 
and  Chrysostorn's  Homilies,  in  1818,  to  stumble  on  a 
statement  complete,  as  far  as  it  goes,  of  his  subsequent 
doctrine  of  the  identity  of  Church  anJ  State. 

Meanwhile  he  had  been  gradually  led  to  fix  upon 
his  future  course  in  life.  In  Decemuer,  1818,  he  was 
ordained  deacon  at  Oxford ;  and  on  August  llth, 
1820,  he  married  Mary,  youngest  daughter  of  the  Rev. 
John  Penrose,  Rector  of  Medborough,  in  Nottingham- 
shire, and  sister  of  one  of  his  earliest  school  and  col- 
lege friends,  Trevenen  Penrose :  having  previously 
settled  in  1819  at  Laleham,  near  Staines,  with  his 
mother,  aunt,  and  sister,  where  he  remained  for  the 
next  nine  years,  taking  seven  or  eight  young  men  as 
private  pupils  in  preparation  for  the  Universities,  for  a 
short  time  in  a  joint  establishment  with  his  brother-in- 
law,  Mr.  Buckland,  and  afterwards  independently  by 
himself.  Here  were  born  six  out  of  his  nine  children. 
The  three  youngest,  besides  one  which  died  in  infancy 
in  1832,  were  born  at  Rugby. 

In  the  interval  which  had  elapsed  between  the  end 
of  his  undergraduate  career  at  Oxford  and  his  en- 
trance upon  life,  had  taken  place  the  great  change 
from  boyhood  to  manhood,  and  with  it  a  correspond- 
ing change  or  growth  of  character,  more  marked  and 
more  important  than  at  any  subsequent  period  of  his 
life.  There  was  indeed  another  great  step  to  be  taken 
before  his  mind  reached  that  later  stage  of  develop- 


40  LIFE  OF  DR.  AENOLD. 

ment  which  was  coincident  with  his  transition  from 
Lalcham  to  Rugby.  The  prosaic  and  matter  of  fact 
element  which  has  been  described  in  his  early  Oxford 
life  still  retained  its  predominance,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  dwarfed  and  narrowed  his  sphere  of  thought ; 
the  various  principles  of  political  and  theological  sci- 
ence which  contained  in  germ  all  that  was  to  grow 
out  of  them,  had  not  yet  assumed  their  proper  har- 
mony and  proportions  ;  his  feelings  of  veneration,  if 
less  confined  than  in  later  years,  were  also  less  in- 
tense ;  his  hopes  and  views,  if  more  easily  restrained 
by  the  advice  of  others,  were  also  less  wide  in  their 
range,  and  less  lofty  in  their  conception. 

But,  however  great  were  the  modifications  which 
his  character  subsequently  underwent,  it  is  the  change 
of  tone  at  this  time  between  the  earlier  letters  of  this 
period  (such  as  the  one  or  two  first  of  the  ensuing 
series)  and  those  which  immediately  succeed  them, 
that  marks  the  difference  between  the  high  spirit  and 
warm  feelings  of  his  youth,  and  the  fixed  earnestness 
and  devotion  which  henceforth  took  possession  of  his 
whole  heart  and  will.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
outward  circumstances  which  contributed  to  this  — 
the  choice  of  a  profession  —  the  impression  left  upon 
him  by  the  sudden  loss  of  his  elder  brother  —  the  new 
and  to  him  elevating  influences  of  married  life — the 
responsibility  of  having  to  act  as  the  guide  and  teacher 
of  others  —  it  was  now  for  the  first  time  that  the  prin- 
ciples, which  before  he  had  followed  rather  as  a  matter 
of  course,  and  as  held  and  taught  by  those  around 
him,  became  emphatically  part  of  his  own  convictions, 
to  be  embraced  and  carried  out  for  life  and  for  death. 

From  this  time  forward  such  defects  as  were  pecu- 
liar to  his  boyhood  and  early  youth  entirely  disappear ; 
the  indolent  habits  —  the  morbid  restlessness  and  occa- 
sional weariness  of  duty  —  the  indulgence  of  vague 
schemes  without  definite  purpose  —  the  intellectual 
doubts  which  beset  the  first  opening  of  his  mind  to  the 
realities  of  religious  belief,  when  he  shared  at  least  in 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  41 

part  the  state  of  perplexity  which  in  his  later  sermons 
he  feelingly  describes  as  the  severest  of  earthly  trials, 
and  which  so  endeared  to  him  throughout  life  the 
story  of  the  confession  of  the  Apostle  Thomas,  —  all 
seem  to  have  vanished  away  and  never  again  to  have 
diverted  him  from  the  decisive  choice  and  energetic 
pursuit  of  what  he  set  before  him  as  his  end  and  duty. 
From  this  time  forward  no  careful  observer  can  fail  to 
trace  that  deep  consciousness  of  the  invisible  world, 
and  that  power  of  bringing  it  before  him  in  the  midst 
and  through  the  means  of  his  most  active  engagements, 
which  constituted  the  peculiarity  of  his  religious  life, 
and  the  moving  spring  of  his  whole  life.  It  was  not 
that  he  frequently  introduced  sacred  names  in  writing 
or  in  conversation,  or  that  he  often  dwelt  on  divine 
interpositions  ;  where  many  would  have  done  so  with- 
out scruple,  he  would  shrink  from  it,  and  in  speaking 
of  his  own  religious  feelings,  or  in  appealing  to  the 
religious  feelings  of  others,  he  was,  except  to  those 
most  intimate  with  him,  exceedingly  reserved.  But 
what  was  true  generally  of  the  thorough  interpenetra- 
tion  of  the  several  parts  of  his  character,  was  peculiarly 
true  of  it  in  its  religious  aspect :  his  natural  faculties 
were  not  unclothed,  but  clothed  upon  ;  they  were  at 
once  colored  by,  and  gave  a  color  to,  the  belief  which 
they  received.  It  was  in  Ms  common  acts  of  life, 
whether  public  or  private,  that  the  depth  of  his  relig- 
ious convictions  most  visibly  appeared  ;  it  was  in  his 
manner  of  dwelling  on  religious  subjects,  that  the 
characteristic  tendencies  of  his  mind  chiefly  displayed 
themselves. 

Accordingly,  whilst  it  is  impossible,  for  this  reason, 
to  understand  his  religious  belief  except  through  the 
knowledge  of  his  actual  life  and  his  writings  on  ordi- 
nary subjects,  it  is  impossible,  on  the  other  hand,  to 
understand  his  life  and  writings  without  bearing  in 
mind  how  vivid  was  his  realization  of  those  truths  of 
the  Christian  Revelation  on  which  he  most  habitually 
dwelt.  It  was  this  which  enabled  him  to  undertake 

4* 


42  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

labors  which  without  such  a  power  must  have  crushed 
or  enfeebled  the  spiritual  growth  which  in  him  they 
seemed  only  to  foster.  It  was  the  keen  sense  of 
thankfulness  consciously  awakened  by  every  distinct 
instance  of  his  many  blessings,  which  more  than  any- 
thing else  explained  his  close  union  of  joyousness  with 
seriousness.  In  his  even  tenor  of  life  it  was  difficult 
for  any  one  who  knew  him  not  to  imagine  "  the  golden 
chain  of  heavenward  thoughts  and  humble  prayers  by 
which,  whether  standing  or  sitting,  in  the  intervals  of 
work  or  amusement,"  he  "  linked  together "  his 
"  more  special  and  solemn  devotions,"  (Serm.  vol.  iii. 
p.  277,)  or  not  to  trace  some  tiling  of  the  consciousness 
of  an  invisible  presence  in  the  collectedness  with 
which,  at  the  call  of  his  common  duties,  he  rose  at 
once  from  his  various  occupations :  or  in  the  calm 
repose  which,  in  the  midst  of  his  most  active  labors, 
took  all  the  disturbing  accidents  of  life  as  a  matter  of 
course,  and  made  toil  so  real  a  pleasure,  and  relaxa- 
tion so  real  a  refreshment  to  him.  And  in  his  solemn 
and  emphatic  expressions  on  subjects  expressly  relig- 
ious ;  in  his  manner  of  awful  reverence  when  in  speak- 
ing of  God  or  of  the  Scriptures  ;  in  his  power  of  real- 
izing the  operation  of  something  more  than  human, 
whether  in  his  abhorrence  of  evil  or  in  his  admiration 
of  goodness ;  —  the  impression  on  those  who  heard 
him  was  often  as  though  he  knew  what  others  only 
believed,  as  though  he  had  seen  what  others  only 
talked  about.  "  No  one  could  know  him  even  a  lit- 
tle," says  one  who  was  himself  not  amongst  his  most 
intimate  friends,  "  and  not  be  struck  by  his  absolute 
wrestling  with  evil,  so  that  like  St.  Paul  he  seemed  to 
be  battling  with  the  wicked  one,  and  yet  with  the 
feeling  of  God's  help  on  his  side,  scorning  as  well  as 
hating  him." 

Above  all,  it  was  necessary  for  a  right  understand- 
ing, not  only  of  his  religious  opinions,  but  of  his  whole 
character,  to  enter  into  the  peculiar  feeling  of  love  and 
adoration  which  he  entertained  towards  our  Lord  Jesus 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  43 

Christ,  —  peculiar  in  the  distinctness  and  intensity 
which,  as  it  characterized  almost  all  his  common  im- 
pressions, so  in  this  case  gave  additional  strength  and 
meaning  to  those  feelings  with  which  he  regarded  not 
only  His  work  of  Redemption  but  Himself,  as  a  living 
Friend  and  Master.  "  In  that  unknown  world  in 
which  our  thoughts  become  instantly  lost,"  it  was  his 
real  support  and  delight  to  remember  that  "  still  there 
is  one  object  on  which  our  thoughts  and  imaginations 
may  fasten,  no  less  than  our  affections  ;  that  amidst 
the  light,  dark  from  excess  of  brilliance,  which  sur- 
rounds the  throne  of  God,  we  may  yet  discern  the 
gracious  form  of  the  Son  of  Man."  (Serm.  vol.  iii. 
p.  90.)  In  that  consciousness  which  pressed  upon 
him  at  times  even  heavily,  of  the  difficulty  of  consid- 
ering God  in  his  own  nature,  believing  as  he  did  that 
"  Providence,  the  Supreme  Being,  the  Deity,  and  other 
such  terms  repel  us  to  an  infinite  distance,"  and  that 
the  revelation  of  the  Father,  in  Himself  unapproach- 
able, is  to  be  looked  upon  rather  as  the  promise  of 
another  life,  than  as  the  support  of  this  life,  it  was  to 
him  a  thought  of  perhaps  more  than  usual  comfort  to 
feel  that  "  our  God  "  is  "  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord,  the 
image  of  the  invisible  God,"  and  that  "  in  Him  is  rep- 
resented all  the  fulness  of  the  Godhead,  until  we  know 
even  as  we  are  known."  (vol.  v.  p.  222.)  And  with  this 
full  conviction  both  of  his  conscience  and  understand- 
ing, that  He  of  whom  he  spoke  was  "  still  the  very 
selfsame  Jesus  in  all  human  affections  and  divine  ex- 
cellences ; "  there  was  a  vividness  and  tenderness  in 
his  conception  of  Him,  on  which,  if  one  may  so  say, 
all  his  feelings  of  human  friendship  and  affection 
seemed  to  fasten  as  on  their  natural  object,  "  bringing 
before  him  His  actions,  imaging  to  himself  His  very 
voice  and  look :  "  there  was  to  him  (so  to  speak)  a 
greatness  in  the  image  thus  formed  of  Him,  on  which 
all  his  natural  instincts  of  reverence,  all  his  range  of 
historical  interest,  all  his  admiration  of  truth  and  good- 
ness at  once  centred.  "  Where  can  we  find  a  name 


44  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

so  holy  as  that  we  may  surrender  our  whole  souls  to 
it,  before  which  obedience,  reverence  without  measure, 
intense  humility,  most  unreserved  adoration  may  be 
all  duly  rendered  ?  "  was  the  earnest  inquiry  of  his 
whole  nature,  intellectual  and  moral,  no  less  than  re- 
ligious. And  the  answer  to  it  in  like  manner  expressed 
what  he  endeavored  to  make  the  rule  of  his  own  per- 
sonal conduct,  and  the  centre  of  all  his  moral  and 
religious  convictions :  "  One  name  there  is,  and  one 
alone,  one  alone  in  heaven  and  earth — not  truth,  not 
justice,  not  benevolence,  not  Christ's  mother,  not  His 
holiest  servants,  not  His  blessed  sacraments,  nor  His 
very  mystical  body  the  Church,  but  Himself  only  who 
died  for  us  and  rose  again,  Jesus  Christ,  both  God  and 
Man."  (Serm.  vol.  iv.  p.  210.) 

These  were  the  feelings  which,  though  more  fully 
developed  with  the  advance  of  years,  now  for  the  first 
time  took  thorough  possession  of  his  mind ;  and  which 
struck  upon  his  moral  nature  at  this  period,  with  the 
same  kind  of  force  (if  one  may  use  the  comparison) 
as  the  new  views  which  he  acquired  from  time  to  time 
of  persons  and  principles  in  historical  or  philosophical 
speculations,  impressed  themselves  upon  his  intellect- 
ual nature.  There  is  naturally  but  little  to  interrupt 
the  retirement  of  his  life  at  Laleham,  which  was  only 
broken  by  the  short  tours  in  England  or  on  the  Conti- 
nent, in  which  then,  as  afterwards,  he  employed  his 
vacations.  Still,  it  is  not  without  interest  to  dwell  on 
these  years,  the  profound  peace  of  which  is  contrasted 
so  strongly  with  the  almost  incessant  agitations  of  his 
subsequent  life,  and  "  to  remain  awhile  "  (thus  apply- 
ing his  own  words  on  another  subject)  "  on  the  high 
ground  where  the  waters  which  are  hereafter  to  form 
the  separate  streams  "  of  his  various  social  and  theo- 
logical views,  "lie  as  yet  undistinguished  in  their  com- 
mon parent  lake." 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  exact  notions  of  his 
future  course  which  presented  themselves  to  him,  it  is 
evident  that  he  was  not  insensible  to  the  attraction  of 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  45 

visions  of  extensive  influence,  and  almost  to  his  latest 
hour  he  seems  to  have  been  conscious  of  the  existence 
of  the  temptation  within  him,  and  of  the  necessity  of 
contending  against  it.  "  I  believe,"  he  said,  many 
years  afterwards,  in  speaking  of  these  early  struggles 
to  a  Rugby  pupil  who  was  consulting  him  on  the 
choice  of  a  profession — "  I  believe  that,  naturally,  I 
am  one  of  the  most  ambitious  men  alive,"  and  "  the 
three  great  objects  of  human  ambition,"  he  added,  to 
which  alone  he  could  look  as  deserving  the  name,  were 
"  to  be  the  prime  minister  of  a  great  kingdom,  the 
governor  of  a  great  empire,  or  the  writer  of  works 
which  should  live  in  every  age  and  in  every  country." 
But  in  some  respects  the  loftiness  of  his  aims  made 
it  a  matter  of  less  difficulty  to  confine  himself  at  once 
to  a  sphere  in  which,  whilst  he  felt  himself  well  and 
usefully  employed,  he  felt  also  that  the  practical  busi- 
ness of  his  daily  duties  acted  as  a  check  upon  his  own 
inclinations  and  speculations.  Accordingly,  when  he 
entered  upon  his  work  at  Laleham,  he  seems  to  have 
regarded  it  as  his  work  for  life.  "  I  have  always 
thought,"  he  writes  in  1823,  "  with  regard  to  ambi- 
tion, that  I  should  like  to  be  aut  Caesar  aut  nullus, 
and  as  it  is  pretty  well  settled  for  me  that  I  shall  not 
be  Caesar,  I  am  quite  content  to  live  in  peace  as 
nullus." 

It  was  a  period,  indeed,  on  which  he  used  himself  to 
look  back,  even  from  the  wider  usefulness  of  his  later 
years,  almost  with  a  fond  regret,  as  to  the  happiest 
time  of  his  life.  "  Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God 
and  his  righteousness,  and  then  all  other  things  shall 
be  added  to  you,"  was  a  passage  to  which  now,  more 
than  any  other  time,  he  was  in  the  habit  of  recurring, 
as  one  of  peculiar  truth  and  comfort.  His  situation 
supplied  him  exactly  with  that  union  of  retirement 
and  work  which  more  than  any  other  condition  suited 
his  natural  inclinations,  and  enabled  him  to  keep  up 
more  uninterrupted  than  was  ever  again  in  his  power 
the  communication  which  he  so  much  cherished  with 


46  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

his  friends  and  relations.  Without  undertaking  any 
directly  parochial  charge,  he  was  in  the  habit  of  ren- 
dering constant  assistance  to  Mr.  Hearn,  the  curate  of 
the  place,  both  in  the  parish  church  and  workhouse, 
and  in  visiting  the  villagers  —  thus  uniting  with  his 
ordinary  occupations  greater  means  than  he  was  after- 
wards able  to  command,  of  familiar  intercourse  with 
his  poorer  neighbors,  which  he  always  so  highly  val- 
ued. Bound  as  he  was  to  Laleham  by  all  these  ties, 
he  long  loved  to  look  upon  it  as  his  final  home  ;  —  and 
the  first  reception  of  the  tidings  of  his  election  at 
Rugby  was  overclouded  with  deep  sorrow  at  leaving 
the  scene  of  so  much  happiness.  Years  after  he  had 
left  it,  he  still  retained  his  early  affection  for  it,  and 
till  he  had  purchased  his  house  in  Westmoreland,  he 
entertained  a  lingering  hope  that  he  might  return  to  it 
in  his  old'  age,  when  he  should  have  retired  from 
Rugby.  Often  he  would  revisit  it,  and  delighted  in 
renewing  his  acquaintance  with  all  the  families  of  the 
poor  whom  he  had  known  during  his  residence  ;  in 
showing  to  his  children  his  former  haunts  ;  in  looking 
once  again  on  his  favorite  views  of  the  great  plain  of 
Middlesex  —  the  lonely  walks  along  the  quiet  banks 
of  the  Thames  —  the  retired  garden,  with  its  "  Campus 
Hartius,"  and  its  "  wilderness  of  trees,"  which  lay 
behind  his  house,  and  which  had  been  the  scene  of  so 
many  sportive  games  and  serious  conversations  —  the 
churchyard  of  Laleham,  then  doubly  dear  to  him,  as 
containing  the  graves  of  his  infant  child  whom  he 
buried  there  in  1832,  and  of  his  mother,  his  aunt,  and 
his  sister  Susannah,  who  had  long  formed  almost  a 
part  of  his  own  domestic  circle,  and  whom  he  lost 
within  a  few  years  after  his  departure  to  Rugby. 

His  general  view  of  his  work  as  a  private  tutor  is 
best  given  in  his  own  words  in  1831  to  a  friend  who 
was  about  to  engage  in  a  similar  occupation. 

"  I  know  it  has  a  bad  name,  but  my  wife  and  I  always  hap- 
pened to  be  fond  of  it,  and  if  I  were  to  leave  Rugby  for  no 
demerit  of  my  own,  I  would  take  to  it  again  with  all  the  pleas- 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  47 

ure  in  life.  I  enjoyed,  and  do  enjoy,  the  society  of  youths  of 
seventeen  or  eighteen,  for  they  are  all  alive  in  limbs  and  spir- 
its at  least,  if  not  in  mind,  while  in  older  persons  the  body 
and  spirits  often  become  lazy  and  languid  without  the  mind 
gaining  any  vigor  to  compensate  for  it.  Do  not  take  your 
work  as  a  dose,  and  I  do  not  think  you  will  find  it  nauseous. 
I  am  sure  you  will  not,  if  your  wife  does  not ;  and  if  she  is  a 
sensible  woman,  she  will  not  either  if  you  do  not.  The  mis- 
ery of  private  tuition  seems  to  me  to  consist  in  this,  that  men 
enter  upon  it  as  a  means  to  some  further  end ;  are  always  im- 
patient for  the  time  when  they  may  lay  it  aside ;  whereas  if 
you  enter  upon  it  heartily  as  your  life's  business,  as  a  man 
enters  upon  any  other  profession,  you  are  not  then  in  danger 
of  grudging  every  hour  you  give  to  it,  and  thinking  of  how 
much  privacy  and  how  much  society  it  is  robbing  you ;  but 
you  take  to  it  as  a  matter  of  course,  making  it  your  material 
occupation,  and  devote  your  time  to  it,  and  then  you  find  that 
it  is  in  itself  full  of  interest,  and  keeps  life's  current  fresh  and 
wholesome  by  bringing  you  in  such  perpetual  contact  with  all 
the  spring  of  youthful  liveliness.  I  should  say,  have  your 
pupils  a  good  deal  with  you,  and  be  as  familiar  with  them  as 
you  possibly  can.  I  did  this  continually  more  and  more  be- 
fore I  left  Laleham,  going  to  bathe  with  them,  leaping  and  all 
other  gymnastic  exercises  within  my  capacity,  and  sometimes 
sailing  or  rowing  with  them.  They  I  believe  always  liked  it, 
and  I  enjoyed  it  myself  like  a  boy,  and  found  myself  con- 
stantly the  better  for  it." 

In  many  respects  his  method  at  Laleham  resembled 
the  plan  which  he  pursued  on  a  larger  scale  at  Rugby. 
Then,  as  afterwards,  he  had  a  strong  sense  of  the  duty 
of  protecting  his  charge,  at  whatever  risk  to  himself, 
from  the  presence  of  companions  who  were  capable 
only  of  exercising  an  evil  influence  over  their  associ- 
ates ;  and,  young  as  he  was,  he  persisted  in  carrying 
out  this  principle,  and  in  declining  to  take  any  addi- 
tional pupils  as  long  as  he  had  under  him  any  of  such 
a  character,  whom  yet  he  did  not  feel  himself  justified 
in  removing  at  once.  And  in  answer  to  the  request  of 
his  friends  that  he  would  raise  his  terms,  "  I  am  con- 
firmed in  my  resolution  not  to  do  so,"  he  writes  in 
1827,  "  lest  I  should  get  the  sons  of  very  great  people 


48  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

as  my  pupils  whom  it  is  almost  impossible  to  sophron- 
ize."  In  reply  to  a  friend  in  1821,  who  had  asked  his 
advice  iu  a  difficult  case  of  dealing  with  a  pupil, 

"  I  have  no  douot,"  he  answers,  "  that  you  have  acted  per- 
fectly right;  for  lenity  is  seldom  to  be  repented  of;  and  be- 
sides, if  you  should  find  that  it  has  been  ill  bestowed,  you  can 
have  recourse  to  expulsion  after  all.  But  it  is  clearly  right 
to  try  your  chance  of  making  an  impression ;  and  if  you  can 
make  any  at  all,  it  is  at  once  your  justification  and  encourage- 
ment to  proceed.  It  is  very  often  like  kicking  a  football  up 
hill ;  you  kick  it  onwards  twenty  yards,  and  it  rolls  back  nine- 
teen ;  still  you  have  gained  one  yard,  and  thus  in  a  good  many 
kicks  you  make  some  progress.  This,  however,  is  on  the  sup- 
position that  the  pupil's  fault  is  axpcuria  and  not  xoxm ;  for  if 
he  laughs  behind  your  back  at  what  you  say  to  him,  he  will 
corrupt  others,  and  then  there  is  no  help  for  it,  but  he  must 
go.  This  is  to  me  all  the  difference :  I  would  be  as  patient 
as  I  possibly  could  with  irresolution,  unsteadiness,  and  fits  of 
idleness ;  but  if  a  pupil  has  set  his  mind  to  do  nothing,  but 
considers  all  the  work  as  so  much  fudge,  which  he  will  evade 
if  he  can,  I  have  made  up  my  resolution  that  I  will  send  him 
away  without  scruple ;  for  not  to  speak  of  the  heartless 
trouble  that  such  an  animal  would  give  to  myself,  he  is  a  liv- 
ing principle  of  mischief  in  the  house,  being  ready  at  all  times 
to  pervert  his  companions ;  and  this  determination  I  have  ex- 
pressed publicly,  and  if  I  know  myself  I  will  act  upon  it,  and 
I  advise  you  most  heartily  to  do  the  same.  Thus,  then,  with 

Mr.  ,  when  he  appeared  penitent  and  made  professions 

of  amendment,  you  were  clearly  right  to  give  him  a  longer 
trial.  If  he  be  sincere,  however  unsteady  and  backsliding, 
he  will  not  hurt  the  principles  of  your  other  pupils ;  for  he 
will  not  glory  in  his  own  misconduct,  which  I  suppose  is  the 
danger ;  but  if  you  have  reason  to  think  that  the  impression 
you  made  on  him  was  only  temporary,  and  that  it  has  since 
entirely  gone  away,  and  his  own  evil  principles  as  well  as  evil 
practices  are  in  vigor,  then  I  would  advise  you  to  send  him 
off  without  delay ;  for  then  taking  the  mischief  he  will  do  to 
others  into  the  account,  the  football  rolls  down  twenty-five 
yards  to  your  kick  of  twenty,  and  that  is  a  losing  game." 

k<  t>'E\0umj  oftvvr)  TroXXa  <f>povfovra  irtp  ftrf^fvos  Kpartfiv"  he 
writes,  "must  be  the  feeling  of  many  a  working  tutor  who 
cannot  open  the  eyes  of  his  pupils  to  see  what  knowledge  is, 
—  I  do  not  mean  human  knowledge  only,  but '  wisdom.' " 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  49 

"You  could  scarcely  conceive  the  rare  instances  of  igno- 
rance that  I  have  met  with  amongst  them.  One  had  no 
notion  of  what  was  meant  by  an  angel ;  another  could  not  tell 
how  many  Gospels  there  are,  nor  could  he,  after  due  delibe- 
ration, recollect  any  other  names  than  Matthew,  Mark,  and 
Luke ;  and  a  third  holds  the  first  concord  in  utter  contempt, 
and  makes  the  infinitive  mood  supply  the  place  of  the  princi- 
pal verb  in  the  sentence  without  the  least  suspicion  of  any 
impropriety.  My  labor,  therefore,  is  more  irksome  than  I 
have  ever  known  it;  but  none  of  my  pupils  give  me  any 
uneasiness  on  the  most  serious  points,  and  five  of  them  stayed 
the  sacrament  when  it  was  last  administered.  I  ought  con- 
stantly to  impress  upon  my  mind  how  light  an  evil  is  the 
greatest  ignorance  or  dulness  when  compared  with  habits 
of  profligacy,  or  even  of  wilful  irregularity  and  riotous- 
ness." 

"  I  regret  in  your  son,"  he  says,  (in  writing  to  a  parent,)  "  a 
carelessness  which  does  not  allow  him  to  think  seriously  of 
what  he  is  living  for,  and  to  do  what  is  right  not  merely  as  a 
matter  of  regularity,  but  because  it  is  a  duty.  I  trust  you 
will  not  think  that  I  am  meaning  anything  more  than  my 
words  convey,  or  that  what  I  am  regretting  in  your  son  is  not 
to  be  found  in  nineteen  out  of  twenty  young  men  of  his  age ; 
but  I  conceive  that  you  would  wish  me  to  form  my  desire  of 
what  your  son  should  be,  not  according  to  the  common  stand- 
ard, but  according  to  the  highest,  —  to  be  satisfied  with  no  less 
in  him  than  I  should  have  been  anxious  to  find  in  a  son  of  my 
own.  He  is  capable  of  doing  a  great  deal ;  and  I  have  not 
seen  anything  in  him  which  has  called  for  reproof  since  he 
has  been  with  me.  I  am  only  desirous  that  he  should  work 
more  heartily,  — just,  in  short,  as  he  would  work  if  he  took  an 
interest  of  himself  in  his  own  improvement.  On  this,  of 
course,  all  distinction  in  Oxford  must  depend :  but  much  more 
than  distinction  depends  on  it;  for  the  difference  between  a 
useful  education,  and  one  which  does  not  affect  the  future  life, 
rests  mainly  on  the  greater  or  less  activity  which  it  has  com- 
municated to  the  pupil's  mind;  whether  he  has  learned  to 
think,  or  to  act,  and  to  gain  knowledge  by  himself,  or  whether 
he  has  merely  followed  passively  as  long  as  there  was  some 
one  to  draw  him." 

It  is  needless  to  anticipate  the  far  more  extended  in- 
fluence which  he  exercised  over  his  Rugby  scholars,  by 


50  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

describing  in  detail  the  impression  produced  upon  his 
pupils  at  Laleham.  Yet  the  mere  difference  of  the 
relation  in  which  he  stood  towards  them  in  itself  gave 
a  peculiar  character  to  his  earlier  sphere  of  education, 
and  as  such  may  best  be  described  in  the  words  of  one 
amongst  those  whom  he  most  esteemed,  Mr.  Price, 
who  afterwards  became  one  of  his  assistant-masters  at 
Rugby.» 

"  Nearly  eighteen  years  have  passed  away  since  I  resided 
at  Laleham,  and  I  had  the  misfortune  of  being  but  two  months 
as  a  pupil  there.  I  am  unable,  therefore,  to  give  you  a  com- 
plete picture  of  the  Laleham  life  of  my  late  revered  tutor ;  I 
can  only  impart  to  you  such  impressions  as  my  brief  sojourn 
there  has  indelibly  fixed  in  my  recollection. 

"  The  most  remarkable  thing  which  struck  me  at  once  on 
joining  the  Laleham  circle  was,  the  wonderful  healthiness  of 
tone  and  feeling  which  prevailed  in  it.  Everything  about  me 
I  immediately  found  to  be  most  real ;  it  was  a  place  where  a 
new  comer  at  once  felt  that  a  great  and  earnest  work  was 
going  forward.  Dr.  Arnold's  great  power  as  a  private  tutor 
resided  in  this,  that  he  gave  such  an  intense  earnestness  to 
life.  Every  pupil  was  made  to  feel  that  there  was  a  work  for 
him  to  do,  —  that  his  happiness  as  well  as  his  duty  lay  in  doing 
that  work  well.  Hence  an  indescribable  zest  was  communi- 
cated to  a  young  man's  feeling  about  life ;  a  strange  joy  came 
over  him  on  discovering  that  he  had  the  means  of  being  use- 
ful, and  thus  of  being  happy ;  and  a  deep  respect  and  ardent 
attachment  sprang  up  towards  him  who  had  taught  him  thus 
to  value  life  and  his  own  self,  and  his  work  and  mission  in 
this  world.  All  this  was  founded  on  the  breadth  and  compre- 
hensiveness of  Arnold's  character,  as  well  as  its  striking  truth 
and  reality ;  on  the  unfeigned  regard  he  had  for  work  of  all 
kinds,  and  the  sense  he  had  of  its  value  both  for  the  complex 

*  I  cannot  allow  Mr.  Price's  name  to  appear  in  these  pages,  without  ex- 
pressing how  much  I  am  indebted  to  him  for  the  assistance  which,  amidst 
his  many  pressing  duties,  he  has  rendered  to  this  work,  not  only  here  but 
throughout,  and  which  in  many  cases,  from  his  long  knowledge  and  com- 
plete understanding  of  Dr.  Arnold's  views  and  character,  he  alone  could 
nave  rendered.  Nothing,  indeed,  but  the  very  fact  of  the  perpetual  recur- 
rence of  instances  in  which  I  have  availed  myself  not  only  of  his  sugges- 
tions, but  of  his  words,  would  have  prevented  me  from  more  frequently 
acknowledging  obligations,  for  which  I  here  wish  to  return  my  thanka, 
however  inadequately,  once  for  all. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  51 

aggregate  of  society  and  the  growth  and  perfection  of  the  indi- 
vidual. Thus,  pupils  of  the  most  different  natures  were  keenly 
stimulated ;  none  felt  that  he  was  left  out,  or  that,  because  he 
was  not  endowed  with  large  powers  of  mind,  there  was  no 
sphere  open  to  him  in  the  honorable  pursuit  of  usefulness. 
This  wonderful  power  of  making  all  his  pupils  respect  them- 
selves, and  of  awakening  in  them  a  consciousness  of  the  duties 
that  God  assigned  to  them  personally,  and  of  the  consequent 
reward  each  should  have  of  his  labors,  was  one  of  Arnold's 
most  characteristic  features  as  a  trainer  of  youth;  he  pos- 
sessed it  eminently  at  Rugby ;  but,  if  I  may  trust  my  own 
vivid  recollections,  he  had  it  quite  as  remarkably  at  Laleham. 
His  hold  over  all  his  pupils  I  know  perfectly  astonished  me. 
It  was  not  so  much  an  enthusiastic  admiration  for  his  genius, 
or  learning,  or  eloquence  which  stirred  within  them ;  it  was  a 
sympathetic  thrill,  caught  from  a  spirit  that  was  earnestly  at 
work  in  the  world,  —  whose  work  was  healthy,  sustained,  and 
constantly  carried  forward  in  the  fear  of  God,  —  a  work  that 
was  founded  on  a  deep  sense  of  its  duty  and  its  value ;  and 
was  coupled  with  such  a  true  humility,  such  an  unaffected 
simplicity,  that  others  could  not  help  being  invigorated  by  the 
same  feeling,  and  with  the  belief  that  they  too  in  their  meas- 
ure could  go  and  do  likewise. 

"  In  all  this  there  was  no  excitement,  no  predilection  for  one 
class  of  work  above  another ;  no  enthusiasm  for  any  one-sided 
object;  but  an  humble,  profound,  and  most  religious  con- 
sciousness that  work  is  the  appointed  calling  of  man  on  earth, 
the  end  for  which  his  various  faculties  were  given,  the  element 
in  which  his  nature  is  ordained  to  develop  itself,  and  in  which 
his  progressive  advance  towards  heaven  is  to  lie.  Hence, 
each  pupil  felt  assured  of  Arnold's  sympathy  in  his  own  par- 
ticular growth  and  character  of  talent ;  in  striving  to  cultivate 
his  own  gifts,  in  whatever  direction  they  might  lead  him,  he 
infallibly  found  Arnold  not  only  approving,  but  positively  and 
sincerely  valuing  for  themselves  the  results  he  had  arrived  at ; 
and  that  approbation  and  esteem  gave  a  dignity  and  a  worth 
both  to  himself  and  his  labor. 

'•  His  humility  was  very  deeply  seated ;  his  respect  for  all 
knowledge  sincere.  A  strange  feeling  passed  over  the  pupil's 
mind  when  he  found  great,  and  often  undue,  credit  given  him 
for  knowledge  of  which  his  tutor  was  ignorant.  But  this  gen- 
erated no  conceit :  the  example  before  his  eyes  daily  reminded 
him  that  it  was  only  as  a  means  of  usefulness,  as  an  improve- 


52  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

ment  of  talents  for  his  own  good  and  that  of  others,  that 
knowledge  was  valued.  He  could  not  find  comfort,  in  the 
presence  of  such  reality,  in  any  shallow  knowledge. 

"  There  was  then,  as  afterwards,  great  simplicity  in  his 
religious  character.  It  was  no  isolated  part  of  his  nature,  it 
was  a  bright  and  genial  light  shining  on  every  branch  of  his 
life.  He  took  very  great  pains  with  the  Divinity  lessons  of 
his  pupils :  and  his  lectures  were  admirable,  and,  I  distinctly 
remember,  very  highly  prized  for  their  depth  and  originality. 
Neither  generally  in  ordinary  conversation,  nor  in  his  walks 
with  his  pupils,  was  his  style  of  speaking  directly  or  mainly 
religious ;  but  he  was  ever  very  ready  to  discuss  any  religious 
question ;  whilst  the  depth  and  truth  of  his  nature,  and  the 
earnestness  of  his  religious  convictions  and  feelings,  were  ever 
bursting  forth,  so  as  to  make  it  strongly  felt  that  his  life,  both 
outward  and  inward,  was  rooted  in  God. 

"  In  the  details  of  daily  business,  the  quantity  of  time  that 
he  devoted  to  his  pupils  was  very  remarkable.  Lessons  began 
at  seven,  and  with  the  interval  of  breakfast  lasted  till  nearly 
three ;  then  he  would  walk  with  his  pupils,  and  dine  at  half- 
past  five.  At  seven  he  usually  had  some  lesson  on  hand ;  and 
it  was  only  when  we  ah1  were  gathered  up  in  the  drawing- 
room  after  tea,  amidst  young  men  on  all  sides  of  him,  that  he 
would  commence  work  for  himself,  in  writing  his  sermons  or 
Roman  History. 

"  Who  that  ever  had  the  happiness  of  being  at  Laleham, 
does  not  remember  the  lightness  and  joyousness  of  heart  with 
which  he  would  romp  and  play  in  the  garden,  or  plunge  with 
a  boy's  delight  into  the  Thames  ;  or  the  merry  fun  with  which 
he  would  battle  with  spears  with  his  pupils  ?  Which  of  them 
does  not  recollect  how  the  tutor  entered  into  his  amusements 
with  scarcely  less  glee  than  himself? 

"  But  I  must  conclude :  I  do  not  pretend  to  touch  on  every 
point.  I  have  told  you  what  struck  me  most,  and  I  have  tried 
to  keep  away  all  remembrance  of  what  he  was  when  I  knew 
him  better.  I  have  confined  myself  to  the  impression  Laic- 
ham  left  upon  me. 

«B.  PRICE." 

The  studies  which  most  occupied  his  spare  time  at 
Laleham  were  philology  and  history,  and  he  employed 
himself  chiefly  on  a  Lexicon  of  Thucydides,  and  also 
on  an  edition  of  that  author  with  Latin  notes,  subse- 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  53 

quently  exchanged  for  English  ones,  a  short  History  of 
Greece,  never  finished  or  published,  and  on  articles  on 
Roman  History  from  the  times  of  the  Gracchi  to  that 
of  Trajan,  written  for  the  Encyclopaedia  Metropolitana, 
between  1821  and  1827. 

It  was  in  1825  that,  through  the  recommendation  of 
Archdeacon  Hare,  he  first  became  acquainted  with 
Niebuhr's  History  of  Rome.  In  the  study  of  this 
work,  which  was  the  first  German  book  he  ever  read, 
and  for  the  sake  of  reading  which  he  had  learned  that 
language,  a  new  intellectual  world  dawned  upon  him, 
not  only  in  the  subject  to  which  it  related,  but  in  the 
disclosure  to  him  of  the  depth  and  research  of  German 
literature,  which  from  that  moment  he  learned  more 
and  more  to  appreciate,  and,  as  far  as  his  own  occupa- 
tions would  allow  him,  to  emulate. 

On  his  view  of  Roman  History  its  effect  was  imme- 
diate :  "  It  is  a  work  (he  writes  on  first  perusing  it) 
of  such  extraordinary  ability  and  learning,  that  it 
opened  wide  before  my  eyes  the  extent  of  my  own 
ignorance  ;  "  and  he  at  once  resolved  to  delay  any  in- 
dependent work  of  his  own  till  he  had  more  completely 
studied  the  new  field  of  inquiry  suggested  to  him,  in 
addition  to  the  doubts  he  had  himself  already  ex- 
pressed as  to  the  authenticity  of  much  of  the  early 
Roman  history  in  one  of  his  first  articles  in  the  Ency- 
clopaedia Metropolitana.  In  an  article  in  the  Quar- 
terly Review  of  1825,  he  was  (to  use  Niebuhr's  own 
words  of  thanks  to  him  in  the  second  edition  of  his 
first  volume,  Note  1053,  i.  p.  451,  Engl.  Transl.)  "  the 
scholar  who  introduced  the  first  edition  of  this  history 
to  the  English  public ; "  and  the  feeling  which  had 
dictated  this  friendly  notice  of  it  grew  with  years. 
The  reluctance  which  he  had  at  first  entertained  to 
admit  the  whole  of  Niebuhr's  conclusions,  and  which 
remained  even  to  1832,  when  in  regard  to  his  views  of 
ancient  history  he  was  inclined  to  "  charge  him  with 
a  tendency  to  excessive  scepticism,"  (Pref.  to  1st  ed. 
of  2d  vol.  of  Thucyd.  p.  xiv.,)  settled  by  degrees  into 

5* 


54  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

a  determination  "never  to  differ  from  him  without 
a  full  consciousness  of  the  probability  that  further 
inquiry  might  prove  him  to  be  right ;  "  (Pref.  to  Hist, 
of  Rome,  vol.  i.  p.  x. ;)  and  with  this  increasing  adhe- 
sion to  his  views,  increased  also  a  sentiment  of  some- 
thing like  personal  veneration,  which  made  him,  as 
he  used  to  say,  "  at  once  enmlous  and  hopeless,"  ren- 
dering him  jealous  for  Niebuhr's  reputation,  as  if  for 
his  own,  and  anxious,  amidst  the  pressure  of  his  other 
occupations,  to  undertake,  or  at  least  superintend,  the 
translation  of  the  third  volume  when  it  was  given  up 
by  Hare  and  Thirlwall,  from  a  "  desire  to  have  his 
name  connected  with  the  translation  of  that  great 
work,  which  no  one  had  studied  more  or  admired 
more  entirely."  But  yet  more  than  by  his  mere  read- 
ing, all  these  feelings  towards  Niebuhr,  towards  Ger- 
many, and  towards  Roman  history,  were  strengthened 
by  his  visit  to  Rome  in  1827,  and  by  the  friendship 
which  he  there  formed  with  Chevalier  Bunsen,  suc- 
cessor to  Niebuhr  as  minister  at  the  Papal  court.  He 
was  at  Rome  only  thirteen  days,  but  the  sight  of  the 
city  and  of  the  neighborhood,  to  which  he  devoted 
himself  to  the  almost  entire  exclusion  of  the  works  of 
art,  gave  him  a  living  interest  in  Rome  which  he  had 
before  wanted  and  which  he  never  lost.  The  Cheva- 
lier Bunsen  he  saw  no  more  till  1838  ;  but  the  conver- 
sation which  he  had  there  enjoyed  with  him  formed 
the  ground  of  an  unbroken  intercourse  by  letters  be- 
tween them :  by  his  encouragement  he  was  principally 
induced  in  later  years  to  resume  the  History  of  Rome, 
which  he  eventually  dedicated  to  him  ;  whilst  dwell- 
ing on  the  many  points  of  resemblance  between  their 
peculiar  pursuits  and  general  views,  he  used  to  turn 
with  enthusiastic  delight  to  seek  for  his  sympathy  from 
the  isolation  in  which  he  often  seemed  to  be  placed  in 
his  own  country. 

But  now,  as  afterwards,  he  found  himself  most  at- 
tracted towards  the  Interpretation  of  Scripture  and 
the  more  practical  aspect  of  Theology ;  and  he  was 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  55 

only  restrained  from  entering  upon  the  study  of  them 
more  directly,  partly  by  diffidence  in  his  own  powers, 
partly  by  a  sense  that  more  time  was  needed  for  their 
investigation  than  he  had  at  his  command.  His  early 
intimacy  with  the  leading  men  of  the  then  Oriel  school, 
remarkable  as  it  was  for  exhibiting  a  union  of  relig- 
ious earnestness  with  intellectual  activity,  and  distinct 
from  any  existing  party  amongst  the  English  clergy, 
contributed  to  foster  the  independence  which  charac- 
terized his  theological  and  ecclesiastical  views  from  the 
first  time  that  he  took  any  real  interest  in  serious  mat- 
ters. And  he  used  to  look  back  to  a  visit  to  Dr. 
Whatcly,  then  residing  on  his  cure  in  Suffolk,  as  a 
marked  era  in  the  formation  of  his  views,  especially  as 
opening  to  his  mind,  or  impressing  upon  it  more 
strongly,  some  of  the  opinions  on  which  he  afterwards 
laid  so  much  stress  with  regard  to  the  Christian  Priest- 
hood. 

But  although  in  the  way  of  modification  or  confir- 
mation his  thoughts  owed  much  to  the  influence  of 
others,  there  was  always,  even  at  this  less  stirring 
period  of  his  mind,  an  original  spring  within.  The 
words,  "  He  that  judgeth  me  is  the  Lord,"  as  they  stand 
at  the  head  of  one  of  the  most  characteristic  sermons  of 
this  period,*  are  a  true  expression  of  his  general  views  at 
this  time  of  his  life.  The  distinctness  and  force  with 
which  the  words  and  acts  recorded  in  the  Gospel  His- 
tory came  before  him,  seemed  to  have  impressed  him 
early  with  a  conviction  that  there  was  something  in 
them  very  different  from  what  was  implied  in  the 
common  mode  of  talking  and  acting  on  religious  sub- 
jects. The  recollections  of  his  conversations  which 
have  been  preserved  from  this  period  abound  with  ex- 
pressions of  his  strong  sense  of  the  "  want  of  Christian 
principle  in  the  literature  of  the  day,"  and  an  anxious 
foreboding  of  the  possible  results  which  might  thence 
ensue  in  the  case  of  any  change  in  existing  notions 
and  circumstances.  "  I  fear,"  he  said,  "  the  approach 

*  Serm.  vol.  i.  p.  229 


56  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

of  a  greater  struggle  between  good  and  evil  than  the 
world  has  yet  seen,  in  which  there  may  well  happen 
the  greatest  trial  to  the  faith  of  good  men  that  can  be 
imagined,  if  the  greatest  talent  and  ability  are  decid- 
edly on  the  side  of  their  adversaries,  and  they  will 
have  nothing  but  faith  and  holiness  to  oppose  to  it." 
"  Something  of  this  kind,"  he  said,  "  may  have  been  the 
meaning  or  part  of  the  meaning  of  the  words,  '  that  by 
signs  and  wonders  they  should  deceive  even  the  elect.' 
What  I  should  be  afraid  of  would  be,  that  good  men,  tak- 
ing alarm  at  the  prevailing  spirit,  would  fear  to  yield 
even  points  they  could  not  maintain,  instead  of  wisely 
giving  them  up,  and  holding  on  where  they  could." 
Hence  one  object  of  his  early  attempts  at  his  Roman 
History  was  the  hope,  as  he  said,  that  its  tone  might  be 
such  "  that  the  strictest  of  what  is  called  the  Evangelical 
party  would  not  object  to  putting  it  into  the  hands  of 
their  children."  Hence  again  he  earnestly  desired  to 
see  some  leading  periodical  taking  a  decidedly  religious 
tone,  unconnected  with  any  party  feeling :  — 

"  It  would  be  a  most  happy  event,"  he  writes  in  1822,  "if 
a  work  which  has  so  great  a  sale,  and  contains  so  much  curi- 
ous information,  and  has  so  much  the  tone  of  men  of  the 
world,  [as  the  Quarterly  Review,]  could  be  disciplined  to  a 
uniformly  Christian  spirit,  and  appear  to  uphold  good  prin- 
ciples for  their  own  sake,  and  not  merely  as  tending  to  the 
maintenance  of  things  as  they  are.  It  would  be  delightful  to 
see  a  work  sincerely  Christian,  which  should  be  neither  High 
Church,  nor  what  is  called  Evangelical." 

Out  of  this  general  sense  of  the  extreme  contrast  be- 
tween the  high  standard  of  the  Christian  religion  and 
the  evils  of  the  existing  state  of  Christendom,  espe- 
cially in  his  own  age  and  country,  arose  one  by  one 
those  views  which,  when  afterwards  formed  into  a  col- 
lected whole,  became  the  animating  principle  of  his 
public  life,  but  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  anticipate 
here,  except  by  indicating  how  rapidly  they  were  in 
the  process  of  formation  in  his  own  mind. 

It  was  now  that  his  political  views  began  to  free 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  57 

themselves  alike  from  the  mere  childish  Jacobinism  of 
his  boyhood,  and  from  the  hardly  less  stable  Toryism 
which  he  had  imbibed  from  the  influence  of  his  early 
Oxford  friends  —  a  change  which  is  best  to  be  seen  in 
his  own  words,  in  a  letter  to  Mr  Justice  Coleridge 
many  years  afterwards  (Jan.  26,  1840).  And  though 
his  interest  in  public  affairs  was  much  less  keen  at  this 
period  than  in  the  subsequent  stages  of  his  life,  his 
letters  contain,  especially  after  1826,  indications  of  the 
same  lively  sense  of  social  evils,  founded  on  his  knowl- 
edge of  history,  which  became  more  and  more  a  part 
of  his  habitual  thoughts. 

"  I  think  daily,"  he  said,  in  speaking  of  the  disturbances  in 
1819,  "of  Thucydides,  and  the  Corcyrean  sedition,  and  of 
the  story  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  of  the  Cassandra-like 
fate  of  history,  whose  lessons  are  read  in  vain  even  to  the 
very  next  generation." 

"I  cannot  tell  you,"  he  writes  in  1826,  "how  the  present 
state  of  the  country  occupies  my  mind,  and  what  a  restless 
desire  I  feel  that  it  were  in  my  power  to  do  any  good.  My 
chief  fear  is  that  when  the  actual  suffering  is  a  little  abated, 
people  will  go  on  as  usual,  and  not  probing  to  the  bottom  the 
deep  disease  which  is  to  my  mind  insuring  no  ordinary  share 
of  misery  in  the  country  before  many  years  are  over.  But 
we  know  that  it  is  our  own  fault  if  our  greatest  trials  do  not 
turn  out  to  be  our  greatest  advantages." 

In  ecclesiastical  matters  in  like  manner  he  had  al- 
ready begun  to  conceive  the  necessity  of  great  altera- 
tions in  the  Church  Establishment,  a  feeling  which 
at  this  period,  when  most  persons  seemed  to  acquiesce 
in  its  existing  state,  was  naturally  stronger  than  in 
the  later  years  of  his  life,  when  the  attacks  to  which 
it  was  exposed  from  without  and  from  within  ap- 
peared at  times  to  endanger  its  existence. 

"  I  hope  to  be  allowed  before  I  die,  to  accomplish  some- 
thing on  Education,  and  also  with  regard  to  the  Church,"  he 
writes  in  1826;  "the  last  indeed  even  more  than  the  other, 
were  not  the  task,  humanly  speaking,  so  hopeless.  But  the 
more  I  think  of  the  matter,  and  the  more  I  read  of  the 


58  LIFE  OP  DR.   ARNOLD. 

Scriptures  themselves,  and  of  the  history  of  the  Church,  the 
more  intense  is  my  wonder  at  the  language  of  admiration 
with  which  some  men  speak  of  the  Church  of  England,  which 
certainly  retains  the  foundation  sure  as  all  other  Christian 
societies  do,  except  the  Unitarians,  but  has  overlaid  it  with  a 
very  sufficient  quantity  of  hay  and  stubble,  which  I  devoutly 
hope  to  see  burnt  one  day  in  the  fire.  I  know  that  other 
churches  have  their  faults  also,  but  what  have  I  to  do  with 
them  ?  It  is  idle  to  speculate  in  attend  reputtica,  but  to  re- 
form one's  own  is  a  business  which  nearly  concerns  us." 

His  lively  appreciation  of  the  high  standard  of  prac' 
tical  and  social  excellence,  enjoined  in  the  Christian 
dispensation,  was  also  guiding  him  to  those  principles 
of  interpretation  of  Scripture,  which  he  applied  so  ex- 
tensively in  his  later  works. 

u  The  tendency,"  he  writes  to  Dr.  Hawkins  in  1827,  "  which 
so  many  Christians  have  had  and  still  have,  to  fancy  that  the 
goodness  of  the  old  Patriarchs  was  absolute  rather  than  rela- 
tive, and  that  men  who  are  spoken  of  as  having  had  personal 
communication  with  God,  must  have  had  as  great  knowledge 
of  a  future  state  as  ourselves,  is  expressed  in  one  of  G.  Her- 
bert's poems,  in  which  he  seems  to  look  upon  the  revelations 
of  the  patriarchal  Church  almost  with  envy,  as  if  they  had 
nearer  communion  with  God  than  Christians  have.  All 
which  seems  to  me  to  arise  out  of  a  forgetfulness  or  misap- 
prehension of  the  privileges  of  Christians  in  their  communion 
with  the  Holy  Spirit,  —  and  to  originate  partly  in  the  trithe- 
istic  notions  of  the  Trinity,  which  make  men  involuntarily 
consider  the  Third  Person  as  inferior  in  some  degree  to  those 
wh'o  are  called  First  and  Second,  whereas  the  Third  relation 
of  the  Deity  to  man  is  rather  the  most  perfect  of  all ;  as  it  is 
that  in  which  God  communes  with  man,  not '  as  a  man  talketh 
with  his  friend,'  but  as  a  Spirit  holding  discourse  invisibly 
and  incomprehensibly,  but  more  effectually  than  by  any  out- 
ward address — with  the  spirits  only  of  his  creatures.  And 
therefore  it  was  expedient  for  the  disciples  that  God  should 
be  with  their  hearts  as  the  Spirit,  rather  than  speaking  to 
their  ears  as  the  Son.  This  will  give  you  the  clew  to  my  N 
view  of  the  Old  Testament,  which  I  never  can  look  upon  as 
addressed  to  men  having  a  Faith  in  Christ  such  as  Chris- 
tians have,  or  looking  forward  to  eternal  life  with  any  settled 
and  uniform  hope." 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  59 

Lastly,  the  following  extracts  give  his  approaches 
to  his  subsequent  views  on  Church  and  State. 

"  What  say  you,"  he  writes  in  1827,  to  Dr.  Whately,  "  to 
a  work  on  TroAmKi),  in  the  old  Greek  sense  of  the  word,  in 
which  I  should  try  to  apply  the  principles  of  the  Gospel  to 
the  legislation  and  administration  of  a  state  ?  It  would  begin 
with  a  simple  statement  of  the  reXos  of  man  according  to 
Christianity,  and  then  would  go  on  to  show  how  the  knowl- 
edge of  this  reXof  would  affect  all  our  views  of  national  wealth, 
and  the  whole  question  of  political  economy ;  and  also  our 
practice  with  regard  to  wars,  oaths,  and  various  other  relics 
of  the  crroi^fla  TOW  KOCT/XOU." 

And  to  Mr.  Blackstoiie  in  the  same  year :  — 

"  I  have  long  had  in  my  mind  a  work  on  Christian  Politics, 
or  the  application  of  the  Gospel  to  the  state  of  man  as  a 
citizen,  in  which  the  whole  question  of  a  religious  establish- 
ment and  of  the  education  proper  for  Christian  members  of 
a  Christian  Commonwealth  would  naturally  find  a  place.  It 
would  embrace  also  an  historical  sketch  of  the  pretended  con- 
version of  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  to  the  kingdom  of  Christ 
in  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  which  I  look  upon  as  one 
of  the  greatest  tours  d'adresse  that  Satan  ever  played,  except 
his  invention  of  Popery.  I  mean  that  by  inducing  kings  and 
nations  to  conform  nominally  to  Christianity,  and  thus  to  get 
into  their  hands  the  direction  of  Christian  society,  he  has 
in  a  great  measure  succeeded  in  keeping  out  the  peculiar 
principles  of  that  society  from  any  extended  sphere  of  opera- 
tion, and  in  insuring  the  ascendency  of  his  own.  One  real 
conversion  there  seems  to  have  been,  that  of  the  Anglo- 
Saxons  ;  but  that  he  soon  succeeded  in  corrupting ;  and  at 
the  Norman  Conquest  we  had  little  I  suppose  to  lose  even 
from  the  more  direct  introduction  of  Popery  and  worldly 
religion  which  came  in  with  the  Conqueror." 

All  these  floating  visions,  which  were  not  realized 
till  long  afterwards,  are  best  represented  in  the  first 
volume  of  his  Sermons,  which  were  preached  in  the 
parish  church  at  Laleham,  and  form  by  far  the  most 
characteristic  record  of  this  period. 

"  My  object,"  he  said  in  his  Preface,  "  has  been  to  bring 


60  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

the  great  principles  of  the  Gospel  home  to  the  hearts  and 
practices  of  my  own  countrymen  in  my  own  time  —  and 
particularly  to  those  of  my  own  station  in  society,  with  whose 
sentiments  and  language  I  am  naturally  most  familiar,  and 
for  this  purpose,  I  have  tried  to  write  in  such  a  style  as 
might  be  used  in  real  life,  in  serious  conversation  with  our 
friends,  or  with  those  who  asked  our  advice  ;  in  the  language, 
in  short,  of  common  life,  and  applied  to  the  cases  of  common 
life ;  but  ennobled  and  strengthened  by  those  principles  and 
feelings  which  are  to  be  found  only  in  the  Gospel." 

Tliis  volume  is,  not  only  in  the  time  of  its  appear- 
ance, but  also  in  its  style  and  substance,  the  best 
introduction  to  all  his  later  works ;  the  very  absence 
of  any  application  to  particular  classes  or  states  of 
opinion,  such  as  gives  more  interest  to  his  subsequent 
sermons,  is  the  more  fitted  to  exhibit  his  fundamental 
views,  often  not  developed  in  his  own  mind,  in  their 
naked  simplicity.  And  it  is  in  itself  worthy  of  notice, 
as  being  the  first  or  nearly  the  first  attempt,  since  fol- 
lowed in  many  other  quarters,  at  breaking  through  the 
conventional  pliraseology  with  which  English  preach- 
ing had  been  so  long  encumbered,  and  at  uniting 
the  language  of  reality  and  practical  sense  with  names 
and  words  which,  in  the  minds  of  so  many  of  the 
educated  classes,  had  become  closely  associated  with 
notions  of  sectarianism  or  extravagance. 

It  was  published  in  1828,  immediately  after  his  re- 
moval to  Rugby,  and  had  a  rapid  circulation.  Many, 
both  then  and  long  afterwards,  who  most  differed  from 
some  of  his  more  peculiar  opinions,  rejoiced  in  the  pos- 
session of  a  volume  which  contained  so  much  in  which 
they  agreed,  and  so  little  from  which  they  differed. 
The  objections  to  its  style  or  substance  may  best  be 
gathered  from  the  following  extracts  of  his  own  letters. 

1.  u  If  the  sermons  are  read,  I  do  not  care  one  farthing  if 
the  readers  think  me  the  most  unclassical  writer  in  the 
English  language.  It  will  only  remove  me  to  a  greater 
distance  from  the  men  of  elegant  minds  with  whom  I  shall 
most  loathe  to  be  associated.  But,  however,  I  have  looked 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  61 

at  the  sermons  again,  with  a  view  to  correcting  the  baldness 
which  you  complain  of,  and  in  some  places  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  correct  it.  And  I  again  assure  you,  that  I  will  not 
knowingly  leave  unaltered  anything  violent,  harsh,  or  dog- 
matical. I  am  not  conscious  of  the  ex-cathedra  tone  of  my 
sermons  —  at  least  not  beyond  what  appears  to  me  proper 
in  the  pulpit,  where  one  does  in  a  manner  speak  ex  cathedra. 
But  I  think  my  decided  tone  is  generally  employed  in  putting 
forward  the  sentiments  of  Scripture,  not  in  drawing  my  own 
conclusions  from  it." 

2.  In  answer  to  a  complaint  that  "  they  carry  the  standard 
so  high  as  to  unchristianize  half  the  community,"  he  says,  "  I 
do  not  see  how  the  standard  can  be  carried  higher  than  Christ 
or  his  Apostles  carry  it,  and  I  do  not  think  that  we  ought  to 
put  it  lower.     I  am  sure  that  the  habitually  fixing  it  so  much 
lower,  especially  in  all  our  institutions  and  public  practice, 
has  been  most  mischievous." 

3.  "  I  am  very  much  gratified  by  what  you  say  of  my  ser- 
mons ;  yet  pained  to  find  that  their  tone  is  generally  felt  to 
be  so  hard  and  severe.     I  believe  the  reason  is,  that  I  mostly 
thought  of  my  pupils  in  preaching,  and  almost  always  of  the 
higher  classes,  who  I  cannot  but  think  have  commonly  very 
little  of  the  '  bruised  reed '  about  them.     You  must  remem- 
ber that  I  never  had  the  regular  care  of  a  parish,  and  there- 
fore have  seen  comparatively  little  of  those  cases  of  a  troubled 
spirit,  and  of  a  fearful  and  anxious  conscience,  which  require 
comfort  far  more  than  warning.     But  still,  after  all,  I  fear 
that  the  intense  mercy  of  the  Gospel  has  not  been  so  prom- 
inently represented  as  it  should  have  been,  while  I  have  been 
laboring  to  express  its  purity." 

.  Meanwhile  his  friends  had  frequently  represented  to 
him  the  desirableness  of  a  situation  which  would  se- 
cure a  more  certain  provision,  and  a  greater  sphere 
of  usefulness  than  that  which  he  occupied  at  Lale- 
ham  ;  and  he  had  been  urged,  more  than  once,  to 
stand  for  the  Mastership  at  Winchester,  which  he  had 
declined  first  from  a  distrust  of  his  own  fitness  or  in- 
clination for  the  office,  and  afterwards  from  more 
general  reasons.  But  the  expense  of  the  neighbor- 
hood of  Laleham  had  already  determined  him  to  leave 
it,  and  he  was  framing  plans  for  a  change  of  life,  when, 

TOL.    I.  6 


62  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

in  August,  1827,  the  head-mastership  of  Rugby  be* 
came  vacant  by  the  resignation  of  Dr.  Wooll,  who 
had  held  it  for  twenty-one  years.  It  was  not  till  late 
in  the  contest  for  the  situation  that  he  finally  resolved 
to  offer  himself  as  a  candidate.  When,  therefore,  his 
testimonials  were  sent  in  to  the  twelve  trustees,  noble- 
men and  gentlemen  of  Warwickshire,  in  whom  the 
appointment  rests,  the  canvass  for  the  office  had  ad- 
vanced so  far  as  to  leave  him,  in  the  opinion  of  him- 
self and  many  of  his  friends,  but  little  hope  of  success. 
On  the  day  of  the  decision,  the  testimonials  of  the 
several  candidates  were  read  over  in  the  order  in 
which  they  had  been  sent  in  ;  his  own  were  there- 
fore among  the  last ;  and  whilst  none  of  the  trustees 
were  personally  acquainted  with  him,  few,  if  any  of 
them,  owing  to  the  lateness  of  his  appearance,  had 
heard  his  name  before.  His  testimonials  were  few 
in  number,  and  most  of  them  couched  in  general  lan- 
guage, but  all  speaking  strongly  of  his  qualifications. 
Amongst  them  was  a  letter  from  Dr.  Hawkins,  now 
Provost  of  Oriel,  in  which  it  was  predicted  that,  if  Mr. 
Arnold  were  elected  to  the  head-mastership  of  Rugby, 
he  would  change  the  face  of  education  all  through  the 
public  schools  of  England.  The  trustees  had  deter- 
mined to  be  guided  entirely  by  the  merits  of  the  candi- 
dates, and  the  impression  produced  upon  them  by  this 
letter,  and  by  the  general  confidence  in  him  expressed 
in  all  the  testimonials,  was  such,  that  he  was  elected 
at  once,  in  December,  1827.  In  June,  1828,  he  re- 
ceived Priest's  orders  from  Dr.  Howley,  then  Bishop 
of  London ;  in  April  and  November  of  the  same  year 
took  his  degree  of  B.  D.  and  D.  D. ;  and  in  August 
entered  on  his  new  office. 


The  following  letters  and  extracts  have  been  se- 
lected, not  so  much  as  important  in  themselves,  but 
rather  as  illustrating  the  course  of  his  thoughts  and 
general  views  at  this  period. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  63 


LETTERS  FROM  1817  TO   1828. 

I.       TO    J.    T.    COLERIDGE,    ESQ. 

Oxford,  May  28, 1817. 

I  thank  you  very  heartily  for  the  kindness  which 

all  your  letter  displays,  and  I  cannot  better  show  my  sense 
of  it  than  by  telling  you  without  reserve  my  feelings  and 
arguments  on  both  sides  of  the  question.  The  study  of  the 
law,  in  many  respects,  I  think  I  should  like,  and  certainly 
it  holds  out  better  encouragement  to  any  ambitious  particles 
which  I  may  have  in  my  nature  than  the  Church  does.  But 
I  do  not  think,  if  I  know  myself,  which  perhaps  is  begging 
an  important  question,  that  my  sober  inclinations  would  lead 
me  to  the  law  so  much  as  to  the  Church.  I  am  sure  the 
church  would  be  the  best  for  me,  for  as  I  hope  never  to  enter 
it  with  light  views,  so  the  forming  my  mind  to  a  proper  sense 
of  the  clerical  duties  and  then  an  occasion  and  call  for  the 
practice  of  them  immediately  succeeding,  would  I  trust  be 
most  beneficial  to  me.  To  effect  this,  I  have  great  advan- 
tages in  the  advice  and  example  of  many  of  my  friends  here 
in  Oxford,  and  whether  I  know  myself  or  not  is  another  ques- 
tion, but  I  most  sincerely  feel  that  I  could  with  most  pleasure 
devote  myself  to  the  employments  of  a  clergyman ;  and  that 
I  never  should  for  a  moment  put  any  prospects  of  ambition 
or  worldly  honor  in  competition  with  the  safe  happiness  which 
I  think  a  clergyman's  life  would  grant  me.  Seriously,  I  am 
afraid  of  the  law ;  I  know  how  much  even  here  I  am  led 
away  by  various  occupations  from  those  studies  and  feelings 
which  are  essential  to  every  man ;  and  I  dare  not  risk  the 
consequences  of  such  a  necessary  diversion  of  mind  from  all 
religious  subjects,  as  would  be  caused  by  my  attending  to  a 
study  so  engrossing  as  that  of  law.  To  this  I  am  sure  in  your 
eyes  nothing  need  be  added  ;  but  besides  I  doubt  whether  my 
health  would  support  so  much  reading  and  confinement  to 
the  house ;  and  after  all,  knowing  who  are  at  this  moment 
contending  for  the  prizes  of  the  law,  it  would,  I  think,  be 
folly  to  stake  much  on  the  chance  of  my  success.  Again,  my 
present  way  of  life  enables  me  to  be  a  great  deal  at  home 
with  my  mother,  aunt,  and  sister,  who  are  all  so  circumstanced 
that  I  should  not  think  myself  justified  in  lightly  choosing  any 
occupation  that  would  separate  me  greatly  from  them.  On 


64  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

the  other  hand,  if  I  find  that  I  cannot  conscientiously  sub- 
scribe to  the  articles  of  the  Church,  be  assured  I  never  will 
go  into  orders,  but  even  then  I  should  doubt  whether  I  could 
support  either  the  expense  or  labor  of  the  law.  I  hope  you 
have  overrated  my  "  ambitious,  disputatious,  and  democrat- 
ical"  propensities;  if,  indeed,  I  have  not  more  of  the  two 
first  than  of  the  last,  I  think  J  should  not  hesitate  about  my 
fitness  for  the  Church,  as  far  as  they  are  concerned.  I  think 
you  have  not  quite  a  correct  notion  of  my  political  faith ;  per- 
haps I  have  not  myself,  but  I  do  not  think  I  am  democratically 
inclined,  and  God  forbid  I  should  ever  be  such  a  clergyman 
as  Home  Tooke. 

II.        TO   REV.    GEORGE    CORNISH. 

Laleham,  September  20, 1819. 

Poor  dear  old  Oxford !  if  I  live  till  I  am  eighty, 

and  were  to  enjoy  all  the  happiness  that  the  warmest  wish 
could  desire,  I  should  never  forget,  or  cease  to  look  back  with 
something  of  a  painful  feeling  on  the  years  we  were  together 
there,  and  on  all  the  delights  that  we  have  lost ;  and  I  look 
forward  with  extreme  delight  to  my  intended  journey,  down 
to  the  audit  in  October,  when  I  shall  take  a  long  and  last 
farewell  of  my  old  haunts,  and  will,  if  I  possibly  can,  yet 
take  one  more  look  at  Bagley  Wood,  and  the  pretty  field, 
and  the  wild  stream  that  flows  down  between  Bullington  and 
Cowley  Marsh,  not  forgetting  even  your  old  friend,  "the 
Lower  London  Road."  Well,  I  must  endeavor  to  get  some 
such  associations  to  combine  with  Laleham  and  its  neighbor- 
hood ;  but  at  present  all  is  harsh,  and  ruffled,  like  woods  in  a 
high  wind,  only  I  am  beginning  to  love  my  own  little  study, 
where  I  have  a  sofa  full  of  books,  as  of  old,  and  the  two  verse 
books  lying  about  on  it,  and  a  volume  of  Herodotus ;  and 
vrhere  I  sit  up  and  read  or  write  till  twelve  or  one  o'clock. 

HI.      TO   REV.   F.   C.   BLACKSTONE. 
(On  a  proposal  of  a  Mastership  nt  Winchester.) 

Laleham,  October  2$,  1819. 

I  might  defer  any  discussion  of  the  prospects  which  you 
recommend  to  me  till  we  meet,  were  it  a  subject  on  which  I 
could  feel  any  hesitation  in  making  up  my  mind.  But  thank- 


LIFE  OF  DE.   ARNOLD.  65 

rng  you  as  I  do  very  sincerely  for  the  kindness  of  your  sug- 
gestion, the  situation  which  you  advise  me  to  try  for,  is  one 
which  nothing  but  the  most  positive  call  of  duty  would  ever 
induce  me  to  accept,  were  it  even  offered  to  me.  It  is  one 
which,  in  the  first  place,  I  know  myself  very  ill  qualified  to 
fill;  and  it  would  besides  completely  upset  every  scheme 
which  I  have  formed  for  my  future  comfort  in  life.  I  know 
that  success  in  my  present  undertaking  is  of  course  doubtful ; 
still  my  chance  is,  I  think,  tolerably  fair,  not  indeed  of  making 
my  fortune,  but  of  earning  such  an  income  as  shall  enable  me 
to  live  with  economy  as  a  married  man ;  and,  as  far  as  I  can 
now  foresee,  I  should  wish  to  continue  for  many  years  at 
Laleham,  and  the  house,  which  I  have  got  on  a  long  lease, 
is  one  which  I  already  feel  very  well  inclined  to  regard  as  my 
settled  and  permanent  home  in  this  world.  My  present  way 
of  life  I  have  tried,  and  am  perfectly  contented  with  it ;  and 
I  know  pretty  well  what  the  life  of  a  master  of  Winchester 
would  be,  and  feel  equally  certain  that  it  would  be  to  me 
excessively  disagreeable.  I  do  hot  think  you  could  say  any- 
thing to  shake  me  for  an  instant  on  this  head ;  still  believe 
me  that  I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  the  friendliness 
of  your  recommendation,  which  I  decline  for  reasons  that  in 
all  probability  many  people  would  think  very  empty  and 
ridiculous. 


IV.      TO   KEY.   JOHN    TUCKER. 

Laleham,  November  20, 1819. 

This  day  eight  years,  about  this  time,  we  were  assembled 
in  the  Junior  Common  Room,  to  celebrate  the  first  founda- 
tion of  the  room,  and  had  been  amused  by  hearing  Bartholo- 
mew's song  about  "  Musical  George,"  and  "  Political  Tommy," 
and  now,  of  the  party  then  assembled,  you  are  the  only  one 
still  left  in  Oxford,  and  the  rest  of  us  are  scattered  over  the 
face  of  the  earth  to  our  several  abodes.  There  is  a  "  souvenir 
interessant "  for  you,  as  a  Frenchman  would  say,  and  one  full 
well  fitted  for  a  November  evening.  But  do  you  know  that 
I  am  half  disposed  to  quarrel  with  you,  instead  of  giving  you 
"  Souvenirs  "  —  for  did  you  not  covenant  to  write  to  me  first  ? 

Indeed,  in  the  pictures  that  I  have  to  form  of  my 

future  life,  my  friends  have  always  held  a  part ;  and  it  has 
been  a  great  delight  to  me  to  think,  that  M.  will  feel  doubly 
and  naturally  bound  to  so  many  of  them,  that  she  will  havo 
6*  E 


66  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

little  trouble  in  learning  to  love  them,  and  the  benefits  which 
I  have  received  from  my  Oxford  friendships  have  been  so 
invaluable,  as  relating  to  points  of  the  very  highest  impor- 
tance, that  it  is  impossible  for  me  ever  to  forget  them,  or  to 
cease  to  look  on  them  as  the  greatest  blessings  I  have  ever 
yet  enjoyed  in  life,  and  for  which  I  have  the  deepest  reason 
to  be  most  thankful.  Being  then  separated  from  you  all,  I 
am  most  anxious  that  absence  should  not  be  allowed  to 
weaken  the  regard  we  bear  each  other :  and  besides,  I  can- 
not forego  that  advice  and  assistance  which  I  have  so  long 
been  accustomed  to  rely  on,  and  with  which  I  cannot  as  yet 
at  least  safely  dispense  ;  for  the  management  of  my  own  mind 
is  a  thing  so  difficult,  and  brings  me  into  contact  with  much 
that  is  so  strangely  mysterious,  that  I  stand  at  times  quite 
bewildered,  in  a  chaos  where  I  can  see  no  light  either  before 
or  behind.  How  much  of  all  this  is  constitutional  and  phys- 
ical I  cannot  tell,  perhaps  a  great  deal  of  it ;  yet  it  is  surely 
dangerous  to  look  upon  all  .the  struggles  of  the  mind  as 
arising  from  the  state  of  the  body  or  the  weather,  and  so 
resolve  to  bestow  no  attention  upon  them.  Indeed,  I  think 
I  have  far  more  reason  to  be  annoyed  at  the  extraordinary 
apathy  and  abstraction  from  everything  good,  which  the  rou- 
tine of  the  world's  business  brings  with  it ;  there  are  whole 
days  in  which  ah1  the  feelings  or  principles  of  belief,  or  of 
religion  altogether,  are  in  utter  abeyance ;  when  one  goes  on 
very  comfortably,  pleased  with  external  and  worldly  comforts, 
and  yet  would  find  it  difficult,  if  told  to  inquire,  to  find  a 
particle  of  Christian  principle  in  one's  whole  mind.  It  seems 
all  quite  moved  out  bodily,  and  one  retains  no  consciousness 
of  a  belief  in  any  one  religious  truth,  but  is  living  a  life  of 
virtual  Atheism.  I  suppose  these  things  are  equalized  some- 
how, but  I  am  often  inclined  to  wonder  at  and  to  envy  those 
who  seem  never  to  know  what  mental  trouble  is,  and  who 
seem  to  have  nothing  else  to  disturb  them  than  the  common 
petty  annoyances  of  life,  and  when  these  let  them  alone,  then 
they  are  tv  (viraddfia-i.  But  I  would  compound  for  all  this, 
if  I  could  but  find  that  I  had  any  liking  for  what  I  ought  to 
like ;  but  there  is  the  Sunday  School  here,  for  instance,  which 
I  never  visit  without  the  strongest  reluctance,  and  really  the 
thought  of  having  this  to  do  makes  me  quite  dread  the  return 
of  the  Sunday.  I  have  got  it  now  entirely  into  my  own 
hands,  so  attend  it  I  must  and  will,  if  I  can  answer  for  my 
perseverance,  but  it  goes  sadly  against  me. 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  67 

V.       TO    J.    T.    COLERIDGE,    ESQ. 

Laleham,  November  29,  1319. 

At  last  I  am  going  to  redeem  the  promise  which  I  made 
so  long  ago,  and  to  give  you  some  account  of  our  summa 
rerum.  I  have  had  lately  the  additional  work  of  a  sermon 
every  week  to  write,  and  this  has  interfered  very  much  with 
my  correspondence ;  and  I  fear  I  have  not  yet  acquired  that 
careful  economy  of  time  which  men  in  your  profession  often 
so  well  practise,  and  do  not  make  the  most  of  all  the  odd  five 
and  ten  minutes'  spaces  which  I  get  in  the  course  of  the  day. 
However,  I  have  at  last  begun  my  letter,  and  will  first  tell 
you  that  I  still  like  my  business  very  well,  and  what  is  very 
comfortable,  I  feel  far  more  confidence  in  myself  than  I  did 
at  first,  and  should  not  now  dread  having  the  sole  manage- 
ment of  pupils,  which  at  one  time  I  should  have  shrunk  from. 
(After  giving  an  account  of  the  joint  arrangemeht  of  the 
school  and  the  pupils  with  his  brother-in-law ;)  Buckland  is 
naturally  fonder  of  the  school,  and  is  inclined  to  give  it  the 
greatest  part  of  his  attention ;  and  I,  from  my  Oxford  habits, 
as  naturally  like  the  other  part  of  the  business  best ;  and  thus 
I  have  extended  my  time  of  reading  with  our  four  pupils  in 
the  morning  before  breakfast,  from  one  hour  to  two.  !Xot 
that  I  dislike  being  in  the  school,  but  quite  the  contrary ;  still, 
however,  I  have  not  the  experience  in  that  sort  of  work,  nor 
the  perfect  familiarity  with  my  grammar  requisite  to  make  a 
good  master,  and  I  cannot  teach  Homer  as  well  as  my  friends 
Herodotus  and  Livy,  whom  I  am  now  reading,  I  suppose,  for 
about  the  fiftieth  time. 

Nov.  30th.  —  I  was  interrupted  last  night  in  the  middle  of 
my  letter,  and  as  the  evening  is  my  only  time  for  such  occu- 
pations, it  cannot  now  go  till  to-morrow.  You  shall  derive 
this  benefit,  however,  from  the  interruption,  that  I  will 
trouble  you  with  no  more  details  about  the  trade ;  a  subject 
which  I  find  growing  upon  me  daily,  from  the  retired  life  we 
are  leading,  and  from  my  being  so  much  engrossed  by  it. 
There  are  some  very  pleasant  families  settled  in  this  place 
besides  ourselves ;  they  have  been  very  civil  to  us,  and  in  the 
holidays  I  dare  say  we  shall  see  much  of  them,  but  at  present 
I  do  not  feel  I  have  sufficient  time  to  make  an  acquaintance, 
and  cannot  readily  submit  to  the  needful  sacrifice  of  formal 
visits,  «fec.,  which  must  be  the  prelude  to  a  more  familiar 
knowledge  of  any  one.  As  it  is,  my  garden  claims  a  good 


68  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

portion  of  my  spare  time  in  the  middle  of  the  day,  when  I  am 
not  engaged  at  home  or  taking  a  walk  ;  there  is  always  some- 
thing to  interest  me  even  in  the  very  sight  of  the  weeds  and 
litter,  for  then  I  think  how  much  improved  the  place  will  be 
when  they  are  removed ;  and  it  is  very  delightful  to  watch 
the  progress  of  any  work  of  this  sort,  and  observe  the  gradual 
change  from  disorder  and  neglect  to  neatness  and  finish.  In 
the  course  of  the  autumn  I  have  done  much  in  planting  and 
altering,  but  these  labors  are  now  over,  and  I  have  now  only 
to  hope  for  a  mild  winter  as  far  as  the  shrubs  are  concerned, 
that  they  may  not  all  be  dead  when  the  spring  comes.  Of 
the  country  about  us,  especially  on  the  Surrey  side,  I  have 
explored  much ;  but  not  nearly  so  much  as  I  could  wish.  It 
is  very  beautiful,  and  some  of  the  scenes  at  the  junction  of 
the  heath  country  with  the  rich  valley  of  the  Thames  are 
very  striking.  Or  if  I  do  not  venture  so  far  from  home,  I 
have  always  a  resource  at  hand  in  the  bank  of  the  river  up  to 
Staines ;  which,  though  it  be  perfectly  flat,  has  yet  a  great 
charm  from  its  entire  loneliness,  there  being  not  a  house 
anywhere  near  it ;  and  the  river  here  has  none  of  that  stir  of 
boats  and  barges  upon  it,  which  makes  it  in  many  places  as 

public  as  the  high  road Of  what  is  going  on  in  the 

world,  or  anywhere  indeed  out  of  Laleham,  I  know  little  or 
nothing.  I  can  get  no  letters  from  Oxford,  the  common 
complaint  I  think  of  all  who  leave  it ;  and  if  Penrose  did  not 
bring  us  sometimes  a  little  news  from  Eton,  and  Hull  from 
London,  I  should  really,  when  the  holidays  begin,  find  myself 

six  months  behind  the  rest  of  the  world 

Don  Juan  has  been  with  me  for  some  weeks,  but  I  am 
determined  not  to  read  it,  for  I  was  so  annoyed  by  some 
specimens  that  I  saw  in  glancing  over  the  leaves,  that  I  will 
not  worry  myself  with  any  more  of  it.  I  have  read  enough 
of  the  debates  since  Parliament  has  met  to  make  me  marvel 
at  the  nonsense  talked  on  both  sides,  though  I  am  afraid  the 
opposition  have  the  palm  out  and  out.  The  folly  or  the  mis- 
chievous obstinacy  with  which  they  persist  in  palliating  the 
excesses  of  the  Jacobins  is  really  scandalous,  though  I  own  I 
do  not  wish  to  see  Carlton  House  trimming  up  the  constitu- 
tion as  if  it  were  an  hussar's  uniform I  feel,  how« 

ever,  growing  less  and  less  political. 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  69 


VI.   TO  KEY.  GEORGE  CORNISH. 

Fledborough,  January  3,  1820. 

I  conclude  that  Tucker  is  with  you,  so  I  will 

begin  by  sending  you  both  my  heartiest  wishes  for  a  happy 
new  year ;  and  for  you  and  yours,  that  you  may  long  go  on 
as  you  have  begun,  and  enjoy  every  succeeding  New  Year's 
Day  better  and  better,  and  have  more  solid  grounds  for  the 
enjoyment  of  it :  and  for  Tucker,  that  he  may  taste  equal 
happiness  even  if  it  should  not  be  precisely  in  the  same  way. 
Well,  here  we  are,  almost  at  the  extremities  of  the  kingdom  ; 
Tucker  and  you  at  Sidmouth,  and  Trevenen  and  I  at  Fled- 
borough  We  are  snowed  up  all  round,  and  shall  be 

drowned  with  the  flood  when  it  begins  to  thaw ;  and  as  for 
cold,  at  nine  A.  M.  on  Saturday  the  thermometer  stood  at  0. 
Alas !  for  my  fingers.  Good  night  "  to  both  on  ye,"  as  the 
poor  crazy  man  used  to  say  in  Oxford I  saw  Cole- 
ridge when  I  passed  through  town  on  the  22d,  and  also  his 
little  girl,  one  of  the  nicest  little  children  I  ever  saw.  It 
would  have  formed  a  strange  contrast  with  past  times,  to  have 
seen  us  standing  together  in  his  drawing-room,  he  nursing  the 
baby  in  his  arms,  and  dangling  it  very  skilfully,  and  the  little 
animal  in  high  spirits  playing  with  my  hair  and  clawing  me, 
and  laughing  very  amusingly. 

I  found  them  all  very  well,  and  quite  alone ;  and  since  that 
time  I  have  not  stirred  beyond  these  parishes,  and  except  on 
Sundays  have  hardly  gone  further  than  the  garden  and  the 
great  meadows  on  the  Trent  banks.  These  vast  meadows 
were  flooded  and  frozen  before  the  snow  came,  and  being  now 
covered  with  snow,  afford  a  very  exact  picture  of  those  snowy 
regions  which  Thalaba  passed  over  on  his  way  to  consult  the 
great  Simorg  at  Kaf.  I  never  before  saw  so  uninterrupted 
and  level  a  space  covered  with  snow,  and  the  effect  of  it, 
when  the  sun  is  playing  over  it,  is  something  remarkably 
beautiful.  The  river,  too,  as  I  saw  it  in  the  intense  frost  of 
Saturday  morning,  was  uncommonly  striking.  It  had  sub- 
sided to  its  natural  bed  before  the  snow  came :  but  the  frost 
had  set  in  so  rapidly,  that  the  water  had  been  arrested  in  the 
willows  and  thick  bushes  that  overhang  the  stream,  and  was 
forming  on  them  icicles,  and  as  it  were  fruits  of  crystal  innu- 
merable on  every  spray,  while  the  snow  formed  besides  a 
wintry  foliage  exactly  in  character  with  such  wintry  fruit. 
The  river  itself  rolled  dark  and  black  between  these  glitter- 


70  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

ing  banks,  full  of  floating  masses  of  ice,  which  from  time  to 
time  dashed  against  each  other,  and  as  you  looked  up  it  in 
the  direction  of  the  sun,  it  smoked  like  a  furnace.  So  much 
for  description !  Well,  now,  I  will  tell  you  a  marvel.  I 
wanted  to  bring  down  some  presents  for  each  of  the  sisters 
here ;  and  for  M I  brought  no  other  than  George  Her- 
bert's Divine  Songs,  which  I  really  bought  out  of  my  own 
head,  which  "  I  like  very  much,"  which  I  endeavor  to  inter- 
pret —  no  easy  matter  in  the  hard  parts  —  and  which  I  mean 
to  get  for  myself.  Now  do  you  not  think  I  shall  become 
quite  a  right-thinking  sort  of  person  in  good  time?  You 
need  not  despair  of  hearing  that  I  am  a  violent  admirer  of 
Mr.  Addison  and  Mr.  Pope,  and  have  given  up  "  the  Lord 
Protector." 

I  owe  Tucker  many  thanks  for  his  letter  altogeth- 
er, and  congratulate  him  on  the  Water-Eaton  altar-piece,  as  I 
condole  with  him  on  his  abandonment  of  his  ancient  walks. 
He  ought  to  bind  himself  by  vow  to  visit  once  a  term  each  of 
our  old  haunts,  in  mournful  pilgrimage ;  and  as  the  spring 
comes  on,  if  the  combined  influence  of  wood-anemones,  and 
souvenirs,  and  nightingales,  does  not  draw  him  to  Bagley 
Wood,  I  think  the  case  must  be  desperate.  I  know  I  shall 
myself  cry  once  or  twice  in  the  course  of  the  next  half-year, 
"Oubi  Campi" 


VII.      TO    REV.    GEORGE    CORNISH. 

Lnleham,  February  23,  1820. 

......  You  must  know  that  you  are  one  of  three  persons 

in  the  world  to  whom  I  hold  it  wrong  to  write  short  letters  ; 
that  is  to  say,  you  are  one  of  three  on  whom  I  can  find  it  in 
my  heart  to  bestow  all  my  tediousness ;  and  therefore,  though 
February  23d  stands  at  the  top  of  the  page,  I  do  not  expect 
that  this  sheet  will  be  finished  for  some  time  to  come.  The 
first  thing  I  must  say  is  to  congratulate  you  on  Charles's 
appointment.  If  this  letter  reaches  you  amid  the  pain  of 
parting,  congratulation  will  indeed  seem  a  strange  word ;  yet 
it  is,  I  think,  a  matter  of  real  joy  after  all;  it  is  just  what 
Charles  seems  best  fitted  for ;  his  principles  and  character 
you  may  fully  depend  on,  and  India  is  of  all  fields  of  honor- 
able ambition  that  this  world  offers,  to  my  mind  the  fairest. 
You  know  I  always  had  a  sort  of  hankering  after  it  myself 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  71 

and  but  that  I  prefer  teaching  Greek  to  learning  Hindoo- 
stance,  and  fear  there  is  no  immediate  hope  of  the  conquest 
of  China,  I  should  have  liked  to  have  seen  the  Ganges  well. 
To  your  family  India  must  seem  natural  ground  ;  and  for  the 
separation,  painful  as  it  must  be,  yet  do  we  not  all  in  reality 
part  almost  as  decisively  with  our  friends  when  we  once  settle 
in  life,  even  though  the  ocean  should  not  divide  us  ?  How 
little  intercourse  may  I  dare  to  anticipate  in  after  days  with 
those  who  for  so  many  years  have  been  almost  my  constant 
companions ;  and  how  little  have  I  seen  for  several  years  past 
of  my  own  brother !  But  this  is  prosing.  If  Charles  be  still 
with  you,  give  him  my  kindest  remembrances,  with  every  wish 
for  his  future  happiness  ;  it  already  seems  a  dream  to  look 
back  on  the  time  when  he  used  to  come  to  my  rooms  to  read 
Herodotus.  Tell  him  I  retain  some  of  his  scribbling  on  the 
pages  of  my  Hederic's  Lexicon,  which  may  many  a  time 
remind  me  of  him,  when  he  is  skirmishing  perhaps  with 
Mahrattas  or  Chinese,  and  I  am  still  going  over  the  old 
ground  of  to-Topfys  diro&tgis  f)8f.  You  talk  to  me  of  "  cutting 
blocks  with  a  razor ; "  indeed  it  does  me  no  good  to  lead  my 
mind  to  such  notions ;  for  to  tell  you  a  secret,  I  am  quite 
enough  inclined  of  myself  to  feel  above  my  work,  which  is 
very  wrong  and  very  foolish.  I  believe  I  am  usefully  em- 
ployed, and  I  am  sure  I  am  employed  more  safely  for  myself 
than  if  I  had  more  time  for  higher  studies ;  it  does  my  mind 
a  marvellous  deal  of  good,  or  ought  to  do,  to  be  kept  upon 
bread  and  water.  But  be  this  as  it  may,  and  be  the  price 
that  I  am  paying  much  or  little,  I  cannot  forget  for  what  I 
am  paying  it.  (After  speaking  of  his  future  prospects.) 
Here,  indeed,  I  sympathize  with  you  in  the  fear  that  this 
earthly  happiness  may  interest  me  too  deeply.  The  hold 
which  a  man's  affections  have  on  him  is  the  more  dangerous 
because  the  less  suspected  ;  and  one  may  become  an  idolater 
almost  before  one  feels  the  least  sense  of  danger.  Then 
comes  the  fear  of  losing  the  treasure,  which  one  may  love  too 
fondly ;  and  that  fear  is  indeed  terrible.  The  thought  of 
the  instability  of  one's  happiness  comes  in  well  to  interrupt 
its  full  indulgence  ;  and  if  often  entertained  must  make  a 
man  either  an  Epicurean  or  a  Christian  in  good  earnest. 
Thank  eleven  o'clock  for  stopping  my  prosing !  Good  night 
and  God  bless  you  ! 


72  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

VIII.     TO    THK    SAME. 
(On  the  Death  of  his  Brother.) 

Laleham,  December  6,  1820. 

It  is  really  quite  an  alarming  time  since  1  wrote  to  you  in 
February  ;  for  I  cannot  count  as  anything  the  two  brief  letters 
that  passed  between  us  at  the  time  of  my  marriage.  I  had 
intended,  however,  to  have  written  to  you  a  good  long  one,  so 

soon  as  the  holidays  came ;   but  hearing  from ,  a  few 

days  ago,  that  you  had  been  expressing  a  wish  to  hear  from 
me,  I  thought  I  would  try  to  anticipate  my  intention,  and 
despatch  an  epistle  to  you  forthwith.  It  has  been  an  eventful 
period  for  me  in  many  ways,  since  February  last,  —  more  so, 
both  for  good  and  for  evil,  than  I  ever  remember  before. 
The  loss  which  we  all  sustained  in  May  was  the  first  great 
affliction  that  ever  befell  me  ;  and  it  has  been  indeed  a  heavy 
one.  At  first  it  came  so  suddenly  that  I  could  not  feel  it  so 
keenly ;  and  I  had  other  thoughts  besides  upon  me,  which 
would  not  then  allow  me  to  dwell  so  much  upon  it.  But 
time  has  rather  made  the  loss  more  painful  than  less  so ;  and 
now  that  I  am  married,  and  living  here  calmly  and  quietly,  I 
often  think  how  he  would  have  enjoyed  to  have  come  to 
Laleham ;  and  all  the  circumstances  of  his  death  occur  to 
me  like  a  frightful  dream.  It  is  very  extraordinary  how 
often  I  dream  that  he  is  alive,  and  always  with  the  con- 
sciousness that  he  is  alive  after  having  been  supposed  dead  ; 
and  this  sometimes  has  gone  so  far,  that  I  have  in  my  dream 
questioned  the  reality  of  his  being  alive,  and  doubted  whether 
it  were  not  a  dream,  and  have  been  convinced  that  it  was  not, 
so  strongly,  that  I  could  hardly  shake  off  the  impression  on 
waking.  I  have,  since  that,  lost  another  relation,  my  uncle 
Delafield,  who  died  quite  suddenly  at  Hastings,  in  September  ; 
his  death  fell  less  severely  on  my  mother  and  aunt,  from 
following  so  near  upon  a  loss  still  more  distressing  to  them  ; 
but  there  was  in  both  the  same  circumstance,  which  for  the 
time  made  the  shock  tenfold  greater,  that  my  mother  was 
expecting  to  see  both  my  brother  and  my  uncle  within  a  few 
days  at  JLaleham,  when  she  heard  of  their  respective  deaths. 
I  attended  my  uncle's  funeral  at  Kensington,  and  never  did 
I  see  greater  affliction  than  that  of  his  children,  who  were 
all  present.  I  ought  not,  however,  to  dwell  only  on  the 
painful  events  that  have  befallen  us,  when  I  have  so  much 
of  a  different  kind  to  be  thankful  for.  My  mother  is  settled, 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  73 

my  aunt,  and  Susannah,  in  a  more  comfortable  situation 
than  they  have  ever  been  in  since  we  left  the  Isle  of  Wight, 
My  mother  has  got  a  very  good  garden,  which  is  an  amuse- 
ment to  her  in  many  ways,  but  chiefly  as  it  enables  her  to 
send  little   presents,   &c.,  to   her  children ;  and  Susannah's 
crib  lying  in  a  room  opening  to  the  garden,  she  too  can  enjoy 
it ;    and  she  has  been  buying  some  flowering  shrubs    this 
autumn,  and  planting  them  where  they  will  show  themselves 
to  her  to  the  best  advantage.     My  aunt  is  better,  I  think, 
than  she  commonly  is  ;  and  she  too  enjoys  her  new  dwelling, 
and  amuses  herself  in  showing  Martha  pictures  and  telling 
her   stories,  just  as  she  used  to  do  to  me.     Going  on  from 
my  mother's  house  to  Buckland's,  you  will  find  Frances,  with 
two  children  more  than  you  are  acquainted  with.  ..... 

From  about  a  quarter  before  nine  till  ten  o'clock  every 
evening,  I  am  at  liberty,  and  enjoy  my  wife's  company  fully ; 
during  this  time  I  read  out  to  her,  (I  am  now  reading  to  her 
Herodotus,  translating  it  as  I  go  on,)  or  write  my  Sermons, 
when  it  is  my  fortnight  to  preach ;  or  write  letters,  as  I  am 
doing  at  this  moment.  And  though  the  space  of  time  that 
I  can  thus  enjoy  be  but  short,  yet  perhaps  I  relish  it  more 
keenly  even  on  this  very  account ;  and  when  I  am  engaged, 
I  ought  to  think  how  very  many  situations  in  life  might  have 
separated  me  from  my  wife's  society,  not  for  hours  only,  but 
for  months  or  even  years ;  whereas  now  I  have  not  slept 
from  home  once  since  I  have  been  married ;  nor  am  I  likely 
for  the  greatest  part  of  the  year  to  do  so.  The  garden  is  a 
constant  source  of  amusement  to  us  both  ;  there  are  always 
some  little  alterations  to  be  made,  some  few  spots  where  an 
additional  shrub  or  two  would  be  ornamental,  something 
coming  into  blossom,  or  some  crop  for  the  more  vulgar  use  of 
the  table  coming  into  season ;  so  that  I  can  always  delight  to 
go  round  and  see  how  things  are  going  on.  Our  snowdrops 
are  now  just  thrusting  their  heads  out  of  the  ground,  and  I 
to-day  gathered  a  pink  primrose.  Trevenen  comes  over 
generally  about  twice  a  week  to  see  us,  and  often  stays  to  dine 
with  us  ;  Whately  and  Blackstone  have  also  at  different  times 
paid  us  visits,  and  Mary  was  very  much  pleased  'with  them 

both "We  set  off  for  Fledborough  so   soon  as  the 

holidays  begin,  which  will  be  next  Wednesday '  week,  and 
think  of  staying  there  almost  to  the  end  of  them ;  only 
allowing  time  for  a  visit  to  dear  old  Oxford,  when  I  will  try 
hard  to  get  Mary  to  Bagley  Wood,  and  show  her  the  tree 
VOL.  i.  7 


74  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

where  you  and  Tucker  and  I  were  once  perched  all  together 

I  am  now  far  better  off  than  I  formerly  was  in 

point  of  lectures ;  for  I  have  one  in  Thucydides,  and  another 
in  Aristotle's  Ethics ;  if  you  dive  in  the  former  of  these, 
as  I  suppose  you  do,  it  will  be  worth  your  while  to  get 
Poppo's  "  Observations  Criticae  in  Thucydidem,"  a  small 
pamphlet  published  at  Leipzig,  in  1815,  and  by  far  the  best 
thing —  indeed  one  may  say  the  only  good  one  —  that  has  ever 
yet  been  written  on  the  subject.  I  have  been  very  highly 
delighted  with  it,  and  so  I  think  would  any  one  be,  who  has 
as  much  interest  in  Thucydides  as  we  have,  who  have  been 
acquainted  with  him  so  long.  Another  point  concerning  my 
trade  has  puzzled  me  a  good  deal.  It  has  been  my  wish  to 
avoid  giving  my  pupils  any  Greek  to  do  on  a  Sunday,  so  that 
we  do  Greek  Testament  on  other  days ;  but  on  the  Sunday 
always  do  some  English  book ;  and  they  read  so  much,  and 
then  I  ask  them  questions  in  it.  But  I  find  it  almost 
impossible  to  make  them  read  a  mere  English  book  with 
sufficient  attention  to  be  able  to  answer  questions  out  of  it ; 
or  if  they  do  cram  themselves  for  the  time,  they  are  sure  to 
forget  it  directly  after.  I  have  been  thinking,  therefore,  of 
making  them  take  notes  of  the  sermon,  after  our  Oriel  fashion, 
but  this  does  not  quite  satisfy  me ;  and  as  you  are  a  man  of 
experience,  I  should  like  to  know  what  your  plan  is,  and 
whether  you  have  found  the  same  difficulty  which  I  complain 
of.  I  have  a  great  deal  to  hear  about  you  all,  and  I  shall  be 
very  glad  to  have  tidings  of  you,  and  especially  to  know  how 
Charles  is  going  on,  if  you  have  yet  heard  from  him ;  and 
also  how  Hubert  is  faring,  to  whom  I  beg  you  will  give  my 
love.  It  is  idle  to  lay  schemes  for  a  time  six  months  distant, 
—  but  I  do  hope  to  see  you  in  Devonshire  in  the  summer,  if 
you  are  at  home,  as  we  have  something  of  a  plan  for  going 
into  Cornwall  to  see  my  innumerable  relations  there.  I  heard 
from  Tucker  about  a  week  since  —  perhaps  his  last  letter  from 
Oxford  ;  it  quite  disturbs  me  to  think  of  it.  And  so  he  will 
set  up  at  Mailing  after  all,  and  by-and-by  perhaps  we  shall 
see  the  problem  solved,  whether  he  has  lost  his  heart  or  no. 
I  cannot  make  out  when  we  are  all  to  see  one  another,  if  we 
all  take  pupils,  and  all  leave  home  in  the  vacations.  I  think 
we  must  fix  some  inn  on  some  great  road,  as  the  place  where 
we  may  meet  en  passant  once  a  year.  How  goes  on  poetry  ? 
With  me  it  is  gone,  I  suppose  forever,  and  prose  too,  as  far 
as  writing  is  concerned ;  for  I  do  nothing  now  in  that  way, 


LIFE  OF  PR.  ARNOLD.  75 

pave  sermons  and  letters.  But  this  matters  little.  Have 
you  seen  or  heard  of  Cramer's  book  about  Hannibal's  passage 
of  the  Alps  ?  It  is,  I  think,  exceedingly  good,  and  I  rejoice 
for  the  little  club's  sake.  I  have  been  this  day  to  Egham,  to 
sign  my  name  to  a  loyal  address  to  the  king  from  the  gentle- 
men and  householders  of  this  neighborhood,  expressing  our 
confidence  in  the  wisdom  and  vigor  of  the  constituted  authori- 
ties. I  hope  this  would  please  Dyson.  I  must  now  leave  off 
scribbling.  Adieu,  my  dear  Cornish  ;  Mary  begs  to  join  me 
in  all  kind  wishes  and  regards  to  you  and  yours ;  and  so 
would  all  at  the  other  two  houses,  if  they  were  at  hand. 


IX.     TO    J.  T.  COLERIDGE,  ESQ. 

(In  answer  to  criticisms  on  a  review  of  Poppo's  Observationes  Criticse.) 

Laleham  Garden,  April  25, 1821. 

Now  for  your  remarks  on  my  Poppo.  All  clumsi- 
ness in  the  sentences,  and  want  of  connection  between  the 
parts,  I  will  do  my  best  to  amend  ;  and  the  censure  on  ver- 
bal criticism  I  will  either  soften  or  scratch  out  entirely,  for 
J.  Keble  objected  to  the  same  part.  The  translations  also 
I  will  try  to  improve,  and  indeed  I  am  aware  of  their  baldness. 
The  additions  which  you  propose  I  can  make  readily ;  but  as 
to  the  general  plainness  of  the  style,  I  do  not  think  I  clearly 
see  the  fault  which  you  allude  to,  and  to  say  the  truth,  the 
plainness,  i.  e.  the  absence  of  ornament  and  long  words,  is 
the  result  of  deliberate  intention.  At  any  rate,  in  my  own 
case,  I  am  sure  an  attempt  at  ornament  would  make  my  style 
so  absurd  that  you  would  yourself  laugh  at  it.  I  could  not  do 
it  naturally,  for  I  have  now  so  habituated  myself  to  that 
unambitious  and  plain  way  of  writing,  and  absence  of  Latin 
words  as  much  as  possible,  that  I  could  not  write  otherwise 
without  manifest  affectation.  Of  course  I  do  not  mean  to 
justify  awkwardnesses  and  clumsy  sentences,  of  which  I  am 
afraid  my  writings  are  too  full,  and  all  which  I  will  do  my 
best  to  alter  wherever  you  have  marked  them  ;  but  anything 
like  puff,  or  verbal  ornament,  I  cannot  bring  myself  to. 
Richness  of  style  I  admire  heartily,  but  this  I  cannot  attain 
to  for  lack  of  power.  All  I  could  do  would  be  to  produce  a 
bad  imitation  of  it,  which  seems  to  me  very  ridiculous.  For 
the  same  reason  I  know  not  how  to  make  the  review  more 
striking :  I  cannot  make  it  so  by  its  own  real  weight  and 


76  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

eloquence,  and  therefore  I  think  I  should  only  make  it 
offensive  by  trying  to  make  it  fine.  Do  consider  what  you 
recommend  is  dir\£>s  apurrov,  but  I  must  do  what  is  upia-rov  (pot. 
You  know  you  always  told  me  I  should  never  be  a  poet,  and 
in  like  manner  I  never  could  be  really  eloquent,  for  I  have 
not  the  imagination  or  fulness  of  mind  needful  to  make 
me  so. 

X.    TO    REV.  JOHN   TUCKER. 

Lalehnm,  October  21, 1S22. 

I  have  not  much  to  say  in  the  way  of  news ;  so 

I  will  notice  that  part  of  your  letter  which  speaks  of  my  not 
employing  myself  on  something  theological.  You  must  re- 
member that  what  I  am  doing  in  Greek  and  Roman  History 
is  only  my  amusement  during  the  single  hour  of  the  day  that 
I  can  employ  on  any  occupation  of  my  own,  namely,  between 
nine  and  ten  in  the  evening.  With  such  limited  time,  it  would 
be  ridiculous  to  attempt  any  work  which  required  much 
labor,  and  which  could  not  be  promoted  by  my  common 
occupations  with  my  pupils.  The  Grecian  History  is  just  one 
of  the  things  I  can  do  most  easily ;  my  knowledge  of  it  be- 
forehand is  pretty  full,  and  my  lectures  are  continually 
keeping  the  subject  before  my  mind  ;  so  that  to  write  about  it 
is  really  my  recreation ;  and  the  Roman  History  is  the  same 
to  me,  though  in  a  less  degree.  I  could  not  name  any  other 
subject  equally  familiar,  or  which,  in  my  present  circum- 
stances, would  be  practicable,  and  certainly  if  I  can  complete 
plain  and  popular  histories  of  Greece  and  Rome,  of  a  mod- 
erate size,  cleared  of  nonsense  and  unchristian  principles,  I 
do  not  think  I  shall  be  amusing  myself  ill :  for  as  I  now  am, 
I  could  not  do  anything  besides  my  proper  work  that  was  not 
an  amusement.  For  the  last  fortnight,  during  which  I  have 
had  two  sermons  to  write,  I  have  not  been  able  to  do  a  word 
of  my  History  ;  and  it  will  be  the  same  this  week,  if  I  write 
some  letters  which  I  wish  to  write :  so  that  you  see  I  am  in 
no  condition  to  undertake  anything  of  real  labor.  Be  as- 
sured there  is  nothing  I  would  so  gladly  do  as  set  about  a 
complete  Ecclesiastical  History ;  and  I  love  to  fancy  myself 
BO  engaged  at  some  future  time,  if  I  live;  but  to  begin  such 
a  thing  now  would  be  utterly  desperate.  The  want  of  books 
alone,  and  my  inability  to  consult  libraries,  would  be  a  suffi- 
cient hindrance.  I  have  read  a  new  book  lately,  which  is 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  77 

rather  an  event  for  me,  Jowett's  Christian  Researches  in  the 
Mediterranean.  You  know  it  of  course,  and  I  doubt  not  like 
it  as  much  as  I  do,  which  is  very  much  indeed.  It  is  a  very 
wonderful  and  a  very  beautiful  thing  to  see  the  efforts  made 
on  so  large  a  scale,  and  with  motives  so  pure,  to  diffuse  all 
good  both  temporal  and  spiritual ;  and  I  suppose  that  the 
world  is  gradually  dividing  more  and  more  into  two  divided 
parties  of  good  and  evil,  —  the  lukewarm  and  the  formal 
Christians  are,  I  imagine,  daily  becoming  less  numerous.  I 
am  puzzled  beyond  measure  what  to  think  about  Ireland. 
What  good  can  be  done  permanently  with  a  people  who 
literally  do  make  man's  life  as  cheap  as  beasts' ;  and  who  are 
content  to  multiply  in  idleness  and  in  such  beggary  that  the 
first  failure  of  a  crop  brings  them  to  starvation  ?  I  would 
venture  to  say  that  luxury  never  did  half  so  much  harm  as 
the  total  indifference  to  comfort  is  doing  in  Ireland,  by 
leading  to  a  propagation  of  the  human  species  in  a  state  of 
brutality.  I  should  think  that  no  country  in  the  world  needs 
missionaries  so  much,  and  in  none  would  their  success  be  so 
desperate. 

XI.      TO   J.    T.    COLERIDGE,   ESQ. 

Laleham,  March  3, 1823. 

I  do  not  know  whether  you  have  ever  seen  John 

Keble's  Hymns.  He  has  written  a  great  number  for  most  of 
the  holidays  and  several  of  the  Sundays  in  the  year,  and  I 
believe  intends  to  complete  the  series.  I  live  in  hopes  that 
he  will  be  induced  to  publish  them ;  and  it  is  my  firm  opinion 
that  nothing  equal  to  them  exists  in  our  language :  the  won- 
derful knowledge  of  Scripture,  the  purity  of  heart,  and  the 
richness  of  poetry  which  they  exhibit,  I  never  saw  paralleled. 
If  they  are  not  published,  it  will  be  a  great  neglect  of  doing 
good.  I  wish  you  could  see  them  ;  the  contemplation  of  them 
would  be  a  delightful  employment  for  your  walks  between 

Hadlow  Street  and  the  Temple Have  you  heard 

anything  more  about r—  's  Roman  History  ?    I  am  really 

anxious  to  know  what  sort  of  a  man  he  is,  and  whether  he 
will  write  like  a  Christian  or  no ;  if  he  will  I  have  not  a  wish 
to  interfere  with  him ;  if  not,  I  would  labor  very  hard  indeed 
to  anticipate  him,  and  prevent  an  additional  disgrace  from 
being  heaped  upon  the  historical  part  of  our  literature. 
7* 


78  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 


XII.   TO  REV.  JOHN  TUCKER. 

Laleham,  February  22,  1824. 

My  pupils  all  come  up  into  the  drawing-room  a 

little  before  tea,  and  stay  for  some  time,  some  reading,  others 
talking,  playing  chess  or  backgammon,  looking  at  pictures, 
&c.  —  a  great  improvement  if  it  lasts ;  and  if  this  fair  begin- 
ning continues,  I  care  not  a  straw  for  the  labor  of  the  half 
year,  for  it  is  not  labor  but  vexation  which  hurts  a  man,  and 
I  find  my  comfort  depends  more  and  more  on  their  good  and 
bad  conduct.  They  are  an  awful  charge,  but  still  to  me  a 
very  interesting  one,  and  one  which  I  could  cheerfully  pursue 
till  my  health  or  faculties  fail  me.  Moreover,  I  have  now 
taken  up  the  care  of  the  Workhouse,  i.  e.  as  far  as  going 
there  once  a  week  to  read  prayers  and  give  a  sort  of  lecture 
upon  some  part  of  the  Bible.  I  wanted  to  see  more  of  the 
poor  people,  and  I  found  that  unless  I  devoted  a  regular  tune 
to  it,  I  should  never  do  it,  for  the  hunger  for  exercise  on  the 
part  of  myself  and  my  horses,  used  to  send  me  out  riding  as 
soon  as  my  work  was  done ;  whereas  now  I  give  up  Thursday 
to  the  village,  and  it  will  be  my  own  fault  if  it  does  not  do 
me  more  good  than  the  exercise  would.  You  have  heard 
I  suppose  of  Trevenen's  tour  with  me  to  Scotland.  Inde- 
pendent of  the  bodily  good  which  it  did  me,  and  which  I 
really  wanted,  I  have  derived  from  it  the  benefit  of  getting 
rid  of  some  prejudices,  for  I  find  myself  often  thinking  of 
Edinburgh  quite  affectionately,  so  great  was  the  kindness 
which  we  met  with  there,  and  so  pleasant  and  friendly  were 
most  of  the  people  with  whom  we  became  acquainted.  As  to 
the  scenery,  it  far  surpassed  all  my  expectations :  I  shall 
never  forget  the  effect  of  the  setting  sun  on  the  whole  line  of 
the  Grampians  covered  with  snow,  as  we  saw  them  from  the 
steamboat  on  the  Forth  between  Alloa  and  Stirling.  It  was 
so  delightful  also  to  renew  my  acquaintance  with  the  English 

lakes  and  with  Wordsworth I  could  lucubrate  largely 

de  omni  scibili,  but  paper  happily  runs  short.  I  am  very 
much  delighted  with  the  aspect  of  the  Session  of  Parliament, 
and  see  with  hearty  gratitude  the  real  reforms  and  the  purer 
spirit  of  government  which  this  happy  rest  from  war  is  every 
year  I  trust  gradually  encouraging.  The  West  India  ques- 
tion is  thorny :  but  I  suppose  the  government  may  intrench 
upon  individual  property  for  a  great  national  benefit,  giving 
a  fair  compensation  to  the  parties,  just  as  is  done  in  every 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  79 

Canal  Bill.  Nay,  I  cannot  see  why  the  rights  of  the  plant- 
ers are  more  sacred  than  those  of  the  old  despotic  kings  and 
feudal  aristocracies  who  were  made  to  part  with  many  good 
things  which  they  had  inherited  from  their  ancestors  because 
the  original  tenure  was  founded  on  wrong ;  and  so  is  all  slav- 
ery, all  West  Indian  slavery  at  least,  most  certainly. 


XIII.      TO    W.    W.   HULL,   ESQ. 

Laleham,  September  30, 1824. 

I  am  now  working  at  German  in  good  earnest, 

and  have  got  a  master  who  comes  down  here  to  me  once  a 
week.  I  have  read  a  good  deal  of  Julius  Hare's  friend  Nie- 
buhr,  and  have  found  it  abundantly  overpay  the  labor  of  learn- 
ing a  new  language,  to  say  nothing  of  some  other  very  valu- 
able German  books  with  which  I  am  becoming  acquainted, 
all  preparatory  to  my  Roman  History.  I  am  going  to  set  to 
work  at  the  "  Coke  upon  Littleton  "  of  Roman  law,  —  to  make 
myself  acquainted,  if  possible,  with  the  tenure  of  property; 
and  I  think  I  shall  apply  to  you  for  the  loan  of  some  of  your 
books  touching  the  civil  law,  and  specially  Justinian's  Insti- 
tutes. As  my  knowledge  increases,  I  only  get  a  clearer 
insight  into  my  ignorance ;  and  this  excites  me  to  do  my  best 
to  remove  it  before  I  descend  to  the  Avernus  of  the  press. 
But  I  am  twice  the  man  for  labor  that  I  have  been  lately, 
for  the  last  year  or  two,  because  the  pupils,  I  thank  God,  are 
going  on  well ;  I  have  at  this  moment  the  pleasure  of  seeing 
three  of  them  sitting  at  the  round  table  in  the  drawing-room, 
all  busily  engaged  about  their  themes ;  and  the  general  good 
effect  of  their  sitting  with  us  all  the  evening  is  really  very 
surprising. 


XIV.      TO    KEY.   JOHN    TUCKER. 

Laleham,  April  5, 1825. 

I  am  getting  pretty  well  to  understand  the  his- 
tory of  the  Roman  kings,  and  to  be  ready  to  commence 
writing.  One  of  my  most  useful  books  is  dear  old  Tottle's 
[Aristotle's]  Politics ;  which  give  one  so  full  a  notion  of  the 
state  of  society  and  opinions  in  old  times,  that  by  their  aid 
one  can  pick  out  the  wheat  from  the  chaff  in  Livy  with  great 


80  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

success.  Mr.  Penrose  has  lately  mentioned  a  work  by  a 
Mr.  Cooper,  in  which  he  applies  the  prophecies  in  the  elev- 
enth chapter  of  Daniel  to  Buonaparte.  —  Have  you  read  the 
work  yourself?  My  own  notion  is,  that  people  try  to  make 
out  from  prophecy  too  much  of  a  detailed  history,  and  thus 
I  have  never  seen  a  single  commentator  who  has  not  per- 
verted the  truth  of  history  to  make  it  fit  the  prophecy.  I 
think  that,  with  the  exception  of  those  prophecies  which  re- 
late to  our  Lord,  the  object  of  prophecy  is  rather  to  delineate 
principles  and  states  of  opinion  which  shall  come,  than  exter- 
nal events.  I  grant  that  Daniel  seems  to  furnish  an  excep- 
tion, and  I  do  not  know  how  Mr.  Cooper  has  done  his  work ; 
but  in  general,  commentaries  or  expositions  of  the  prophe- 
cies give  me  a  painful  sense  of  unfairness  in  their  authors,  in 
straining  the  facts  to  agree  with  the  imagined  prediction  of 
them.  Have  you  seen  Cobbett's  "  History  of  the  Protestant 
Reformation,"  which  he  is  publishing  monthly  in  threepenny 
numbers  ?  It  is  a  queer  compound  of  wickedness  and  igno- 
rance with  strong  sense  and  the  mention  of  divers  truths 
which  have  been  too  much  disguised  or  kept  in  the  back- 
ground, but  which  ought  to  be  generally  known.  Its  object  is 
to  represent  the  Reformation  in  England  as  a  great  national 
evil,  accomplished  by  all  kinds  of  robbery  and  cruelty,  and 
tending  to  the  impoverishment  and  misery  of  the  poor,  and  to 
the  introduction  of  a  careless  clergy,  and  a  spirit  of  igno- 
rance and  covetousness  amongst  everybody.  It  made  me 
groan,  while  reading  it,  to  think  that  the  real  history  and 
effects  of  the  Reformation  are  so  little  known,  and  the  evils 
of  the  worldly  policy  of  Somerset's  and  Elizabeth's  govern- 
ment so  little  appreciated.  As  it  is,  Cobbett's  book  can  do 
nothing  but  harm,  so  bad  is  its  spirit,  and  so  evident  its  un- 
fairness. 


XV.      TO   REV.    GEORGE    CORNISH. 

Florence,  July  15, 1825. 

I  wish  I  could  tell  you  something  about  the  people, — but 
how  is  it  possible,  travelling  at  the  rate  that  we  are  obliged 
to  do  ?  We  see,  of  course,  the  very  worst  specimens,  —  inn- 
keepers, postilions,  and  beggars ;  and  one  is  thus  in  danger 
of  getting  an  unfavorable  impression  of  the  inhabitants  in 
fepitc  of  one's  judgment.  A  matter  of  more  serious  thought, 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  81 

and  on  which  I  am  vainly  trying  to  procure  information,  is 
the  condition  of  the  lower  orders.  I  have  long  had  a  suspi- 
cion that  Cobbett's  complaints  of  the  degradation  and  suffer- 
ings of  the  poor  in  England  contained  much  truth,  though 
uttered  by  him  in  the  worst  possible  spirit.  It  is  certain  that 
the  peasantry  here  are  much  more  generally  proprietors  of 
their  own  land  than  with  us ;  and  I  should  believe  them  to 
be  much  more  independent  and  in  easier  circumstances.  This 
is,  I  believe,  the  grand  reason  why  so  many  of  the  attempts 
at  revolution  have  failed  in  these  countries.  A  revolution 
would  benefit  the  lawyers,  the  savans,  the  merchants,  bankers, 
and  shopkeepers,  but  I  do  not  see  what  the  laboring  classes 
Avould  gain  by  it.  For  them  the  work  has  been  done  already, 
in  the  destruction  of  the  feudal  tyranny  of  the  nobility  and 
great  men;  and,  in  my  opinion,  this  blessing  is  enough  to 
compensate  the  evils  of  the  French  Revolution ;  for  the  good 
endures,  while  the  effects  of  the  massacres  and  devastations 
are  fast  passing  away.  It  is  my  delight  everywhere  to  see 
the  feudal  castles  in  ruins,  never,  I  trust,  to  be  rebuilt  or  re- 
occupied  ;  and  in  this  respect  the  watchword  "Guerre  aux  cha- 
teaux, Paix  aux  Chaumieres,"  was  prophetic  of  the  actual 
result  of  the  French  Revolution.  I  am  sure  that  we  have  too 
much  of  the  oligarchical  spirit  in  England,  both  in  Church 
and  State ;  and  I  think  that  those  one-eyed  men,  the  political 
economists,  encourage  this  by  their  language  about  national 
wealth,  &c.  Toutefois,  there  is  much  good  in  the  oligarchical 
spirit  as  it  exists  in  England 


XVI.    TO    REV.    J.    TUCKER. 

Laleham,  August  22, 1825. 

I  got  no  books  of  any  consequence,  nor   did  I 

learn  anything  except  that  general  notion  of  the  climate, 
scenery,  and  manners  of  the  country,  which  can  only  be  gained 
by  actual  observation.  We  crossed  the  Tiber  a  little  beyond 
Perugia,  where  it  was  a  most  miserable  ditch  with  hardly 
water  enough  to  turn  a  mill ;  indeed,  most  of  the  streams 
which  flow  from  the  Apennines  were  altogether  dried  up,  and 
the  dry  and  thirsty  appearance  of  everything  was  truly 
oriental.  The  flowers  were  a  great  delight  to  me,  and  it  was 
very  beautiful  to  see  the  hedges  full  of  the  pomegranate  in 
full  flower :  the  bright  scarlet  blossom  is  so  exceedingly  orna- 


82  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

mental,  to  say  nothing  of  one's  associations  with  the  fruit 
What  we  call  the  Spanish  broom  of  our  gardens  is  the  com- 
mon wild  broom  of  the  Apennines,  but  I  do  not  think  it  so 
beautiful  as  our  own.  The  fig-trees  were  most  luxuriant,  but 
not  more  so  than  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  I  got  tired  of  the 
continual  occurrence  of  fruit-trees,  chiefly  olives,  instead  of 
large  forest-trees.  The  vale  of  Florence  looks  quite  poor  and 
dull  in  comparison  of  our  rich  valleys,  from  the  total  want  of 
timber;  and  in  Florence  itself  there  is  not  a  tree.  How 
miserably  inferior  to  Oxford  is  Florence  altogether,  both 
within  and  as  seen  from  a  distance ;  in  short,  I  never  was  so 
disappointed  in  any  place  in  my  life.  My  favorite  towns 
were  Genoa,  Milan,  and  Verona.  The  situation  of  the  latter 
just  at  the  foot  of  the  Alps,  and  almost  encircled,  like  Dur- 
ham, by  a  full  and  rapid  river,  the  Adige,  was  very  delight- 
ful. Tell  me  any  news  you  can  think  of,  remembering  that 
two  months  in  the  summer  are  a  gap  in  my  knowledge,  as  I 
never  saw  a  single  newspaper  during  my  absence.  Specially 
send  me  a  full  account  of  yourself  and  your  sisters,  and  the 
Kebles  if  you  know  aught  of  them.  How  pure  and  beauti- 
ful was  J.  Keble's  article  on  Sacred  Poetry  in  the  Quarterly, 
and  how  glad  am  I  that  he  was  prevailed  on  to  write  it.  It 
seemed  to  me  to  sanctify  in  a  manner  the  whole  Number. 
Mine  on  the  early  Roman  History  was  slightly  altered  by 
Coleridge  here  and  there,  so  that  I  am  not  quite  responsible 
for  all  of  it. 


XVII.       TO    THE    REV.    G.    CORNISH. 

Laleham,  October  18, 1825. 

I  have  also  seen  some  sermons,  preached  before 

the  University  of  Cambridge,  by  a  Mr.  Rose,  directed  against 
the  German  theologians,  in  the  advertisement  to  which  he 
attacks  my  article  in  the  Quarterly  with  great  vehemence. 

He  is  apparently  a  good  man,  and  his  book  is  likely, 

I  think,  to  do  good ;  but  it  does  grieve  me  to  find  persons  of 
his  stamp  quarrelling  with  their  friends  when  there  are  more 
than  enough  of  enemies  in  the  world  for  every  Christian  to 
strive  against.  I  met  five  Englishmen  at  the  public  table  at 
our  inn  at  Milan,  who  gave  me  great  matter  for  cogitation. 
One  was  a  clergyman,  and  just  returned  from  Egypt ;  the  rest 
were  young  men,  i.  e.  between  twenty-five  and  thirty,  and 
apparently  of  no  profession.  I  may  safely  say,  that  since 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  83 

I  was  an  under-graduate,  I  never  heard  any  conversation  so 
profligate  as  that  which  they  all  indulged  in,  the  clergyman 
particularly;  indeed,  it  was  not  merely  gross,  but  avowed 
principles  of  wickedness  such  as  I  do  not  remember  ever  to 
have  heard  in  Oxford.  But  what  struck  me  most  was,  that 
with  this  sensuality  there  was  united  some  intellectual  activity, 
—  they  were  not  ignorant,  but  seemed  bent  on  gaining  a  great 
variety  of  solid  information  from  their  travels.  Now  this 
union  of  vice  and  intellectual  power  and  knowledge  seems  to 
me  rather  a  sign  of  the  age ;  and  if  it  goes  on,  it  threatens  to 
produce  one  of  the  most  fearful  forms  of  Antichrist  which 
has  yet  appeared.  I  am  sure  that  the  great  prevalence  of 
travelling  fosters  this  spirit,  not  that  men  learn  mischief  from 
the  French  or  Italians,  but  because  they  are  removed  from 
the  check  of  public  opinion,  and  are,  in  fact,  self-constituted 
outlaws,  neither  belonging  to  the  society  which  they  have 
left,  nor  taking  a  place  in  that  of  the  countries  where  they 
are  travelling.  What  I  saw  also  of  the  Pope's  religion  in 
his  own  territories  excited  my  attention  a  good  deal.  Monk- 
ery seems  nourishing  there  in  great  force,  and  the  abomina- 
tions of  their  systematic  falsehoods  seem  as  gross  as  ever.  In 
France,  on  the  contrary,  the  Catholics  seemed  to  me  to  be 
Christians,  and  daily  becoming  more  and  more  so.  In  Italy 
they  seem  to  me  to  have  no  more  title  to  the  name  than  if 
the  statues  of  Venus  and  Juno  occupied  the  place  of  those 
of  the  Virgin.  It  is  just  the  old  Heathenism,  and,  as  I  should 
think,  with  a  worse  system  of  deceit. ' 

XVIII.      TO    REV.   J.    TUCKER. 

Laleham,  1826. 

It  delighted  me  to  hear speak  decidedly  of 

the  great  need  of  reform  in  the  Church,  and  from  what  I 
have  heard  in  other  quarters,  I  am  in  hopes  that  these  senti- 
ments are  gaining  ground.  But  the  difficulty  will  always  be 
practically,  who  is  to  reform  it  ?  For  the  clergy  have  a  horror 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  Parliament  and  the  country 
will  never  trust  the  matter  to  the  clei'gy.  If  we  had  our 
General  Assembly,  there  might  be  some  chance ;  but  as  it  is, 
I  know  no  more  hopeless  prospect,  and  every  year  I  live,  this 
is  to  me  more  painful.  If  half  the  energy  and  resources 
which  have  been  turned  to  Bible  societies  and  missions,  had 
steadily  been  applied  to  the  reform  of  our  own  institutions, 


84  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

and  the  enforcing  the  principles  of  the  Gospel  among  our- 
selves, I  cannot  but  think  that  we  should  have  been  fulfilling 
a  higher  duty,  and  with  the  blessing  of  God  might  have  pro- 
duced more  satisfactory  fruit.  "  These  things  ought  ye  to 
have  done,  and  not  to  have  left  the  other  undone."*  Of 
the  German  divines,  if  Mr.  Rose  is  to  be  trusted,  there  can 
be  but  one  opinion :  they  exemplify  the  evils  of  knowledge 
without  a  Christian  watchfulness  over  the  heart  and  practice ; 
but  I  greatly  fear  that  there  are  some  here  who  would  abuse 
tliis  example  to  the  discouragement  of  impartial  investigation 
and  independent  thought ;  as  if  ignorance  and  blind  follow- 
ing the  opinions  of  others  were  the  habits  that  best  become 
Christians.  "  He  that  is  spiritual  judgeth  all  things," —  if 
cleared  from  fanaticism  and  presumption,  and  taken  in  con- 
nection with  "But  yet  I  show  unto  you  a  more  excellent 
way,"  —  is  at  once,  I  think,  our  privilege  and  our  duty. 

XIX.      TO    REV.   JOHN   TUCKER. 

Laleham,  March  4, 1827. 

I  meant  to  have  written  almost  immediately  upon  my 
return  home  from  Kent ;  for  delightful  as  is  the  recollection 
of  my  short  visit  to  you  on  every  other  ground,  I  was,  and 
have  been  ever  since,  a  good  deal  annoyed  by  some  part  of 
our  conversation,  i.  e.  by  observing  the  impression  produced 
on  your  mind  by  some  of  the  opinions  which  I  expressed.  It 
is  to  me  personally  a  very  great  pain  that  I  should  have 
excited  feelings  of  disapprobation  in  the  mind  of  a  man  whom 
I  so  entirely  approve  and  love,  and  yet  that  I  cannot  feel  the 
disapprobation  to  be  deserved,  and  therefore  cannot  remove 
the  cause  of  it.  And  on  more  general  grounds  it  makes  me 
fear,  that  those  engaged  in  the  same  great  cause  will  never 
heartily  sink  their  little  differences  of  opinion,  when  I  find 
that  you,  who  have  known  me  so  long,  cannot  hear  them 
without  thinking  them  not  merely  erroneous,  but  morally 
wrong,  and  such,  therefore,  as  give  you  pain  when  uttered. 
I  am  not  in  the  least  going  to  renew  the  argument ;  it  is  very 
likely  that  I  was  wrong  in  it;  and  I  am  sure  it  would  not 
annoy  me  that  you  should  think  me  so,  just  as  I  may  think 
you  wrong  in  any  point,  or  as  I  think  J.  Keble  wrong  in  half 

*  The  words  of  the  English  version  are  here  substituted  for  the  quot» 
tloua  from  the  Greek. 


LIFE   OF  DR.    ARNOLD.  85 

av  hundred,  yet  without  being  grieved  that  he  should  hold 
thv,m,  that  is,  grieved  as  at  a  fault.  You  may  say  that  a 
great  many  erroneous  opinions  imply  no  moral  fault  at  all,  but 
that  mine  did,  namely,  the  fault  of  an  unsubmissive  under- 
standing. But  it  seems  to  me  that,  of  all  faults,  this  is  the  most 
difficult  to  define  or  to  discern :  for  who  shall  say  where  the 
understanding  ought  to  submit  itself,  unless  where  it  is  in- 
clined to  advocate  anything  immoral  ?  We  know  that  what 
in  one  age  has  been  called  the  spirit  of  rebellious  reason, 
has  in  another  been  allowed  by  all  good  men  to  have  been 
nothing  but  a  sound  judgment  exempt  from  superstition.  We 
know  that  the  Catholics  look  with  as  great  horror  on  the  con- 
sequences of  denying  the  infallibility  of  the  Church  as  you 
can  do  on  those  of  denying  the  entire  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures;  and  that,  to  come  nearer  to  the  point,  the  in- 
spiration of  the  Scriptures  in  points  of  physical  science  was 
once  insisted  on  as  stoutly  as  it  is  now  maintained  with  re- 
gard to  matter  of  history.  Now  it  may  be  correct  to  deny 
their  inspiration  in  one  and  not  in  the  other ;  but  I  think 
it  is  hard  to  ascribe  the  one  opinion  to  anything  morally 
faulty  more  than  the  other.  I  am  far  from  thinking  myself 
so  good  a  man  by  many  degrees  as  you  are.  I  am  not  so 
advanced  a  Christian.  But  I  am  sure  that  my  love  for  the 
Gospel  is  as  sincere,  and  my  desire  to  bring  every  thought 
into  the  obedience  of  Christ  is  one  which  I  think  I  do  not 
deceive  myself  in  believing  that  I  honestly  feel.  It  is  very 
painful,  therefore,  to  be  suspected  of  paying  them  only  a 
divided  homage,  or  to  be  deficient  in  reverence  to  Him  whom 
every  year  that  I  live  my  whole  soul  and  spirit  own  with  a 
more  entire  certainty  and  love.  Let  me  again  say,  that  I  am 
neither  defending  the  truth  of  the  particular  opinions  which  I 
expressed  to  you,  nor  yet  disavowing  them.  I  only  think 
that  it  is  a  pity  that  they  should  shock  you ;  as  I  think  we 
ought  to  know  one  another's  principles  well  enough  by  this 
time,  not  certainly  to  make  us  acquiesce  in  all  each  other's 
opinions,  but  to  be  satisfied  that  they  may  be  entertained  in- 
nocently, and  that,  therefore,  we  may  differ  from  each  other 
without  pain.  But  enough  of  this  ;  only  it  has  annoyed  me 
a  great  deal,  and  has  made  nae  doubt  where  I  can  find  a 
person  to  whom  I  may  speak  freely  if  I  cannot  do  so  even 
to  you. 
VOL.  i.  & 


86  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

LETTERS  RELATING  TO  THE  ELECTION  AT  RUGBY. 

XX.       TO    REV.    E.    HAWKINS. 

Laleham,  October  21,  1827. 

I  feel  most  sincerely  obliged  to  you  and  my  other  friends 
in  Oxford  for  the  kind  interest  which  you  show  in  my  behalf, 
in  wishing  to  procure  for  me  the  head-mastership  at  Rugby. 
Of  its  being  a  great  deal  more  lucrative  than  my  present  em- 
ployment I  have  no  doubt ;  nor  of  its  being  in  itself  a  situa- 
tion of  more  extensive  usefulness ;  but  I  do  doubt  whether 
it  would  be  so  in  my  hands,  and  how  far  I  am  fitted  for  the 

place  of  head-master  of  a  large  school I  confess 

that  I  should  very  much  object  to  undertake  a  charge  in  which 
I  was  not  invested  with  pretty  full  discretion.  According  to 
my  notions  of  what  large  schools  are,  founded  on  all  I  know 
and  all  I  have  ever  heard  of  them,  expulsion  should  be  prac- 
tised much  oftener  than  it  is.  Now,  I  know  that  trustees, 
in  general,  are  averse  to  this  plan,  because  it  has  a  tendency 
to  lessen  the  numbers  of  the  school,  and  they  regard  quantity 
more  than  quality.  In  fact,  my  opinion  on  this  point  might, 
perhaps,  generally  be  considered  as  disqualifying  me  for  the 
situation  of  master  of  a  great  school ;  yet  I  could  not  consent 
to  tolerate  much  that  I  know  is  tolerated  generally,  and,  there- 
fore, I  should  not  like  to  enter  on  an  office  which  I  could  not 
discharge  according  to  my  own  views  of  what  is  right.  I  do 
not  believe  myself,  that  my  system  would  be,  in  fact,  a  cruel 
or  a  harsh  one,  and  I  believe  that  with  much  care  on  the 
part  of  the  masters,  it  would  be  seldom  necessary  to  proceed 
to  the  ratio  ultima ;  only  I  would  have  it  clearly  understood, 
that  I  would  most  unscrupulously  resort  to  it,  at  whatever 
inconvenience,  where  there  was  a  perseverance  in  any  habit 
inconsistent  with  a  boy's  duties. 

XXI.       TO    REV.    GEORGE    CORNISH. 

Laleham,  November  30,  1827. 

You  have  often  wanted  me  to  be  master  at  Winchester,  so 
I  think  you  will  be  glad  to  hear  that  I  am  actually  a  candi- 
date for  Rugby.  I  was  strongly  urged  to  stand,  and  money 
tempted  me,  but  I  cannot  in  my  heart  be  sorry  to  stay  where 
both  M.  and  myself  are  so  entirely  happy.  If  I  do  get  it,  1 


LIFE   OF  DK.   ARNOLD.  87 

feel  as  if  I  could  set  to  work  very  heartily,  and,  with  God's 
blessing,  I  should  like  to  try  whether  my  notions  of  Christian 
education  are  really  impracticable,  whether  our  system  of 
public  schools  has  not  in  it  some  noble  elements  which,  under 
the  blessing  of  the  Spirit  of  all  holiness  and  wisdom,  might 
produce  fruit  even  to  life  eternal.  When  I  think  about  it 
thus,  I  really  long  to  take  rod  in  hand ;  but  when  I  think  of 
the  Trpdf  TO  re/lof,  the  perfect  vileness  which  I  must  daily  con- 
template, the  certainty  that  this  can  at  best  be  only  partially 
remedied,  the  irksomeness  of  "  fortemque  Gyam  fortemque 
Cloanthum,"  and  the  greater  form  and  publicity  of  the  life 
which  we  should  there  lead,  when  I  could  no  more  bathe 
daily  in  the  clear  Thames,  nor  wear  old  coats  and  Russia 
duck  trousers,  nor  hang  on  a  gallows,*  nor  climb  a  pole,  I 
grieve  to  think  of  the  possibility  of  a  change ;  but  as  there 
are  about  thirty  candidates,  and  I  only  applied  very  late,  I 
think  I  need  not  disquiet  myself.  I  send  you  this  brief 
notice,  because  you  ought  to  hear  of  my  plans  from  myself 
rather  than  from  others ;  but  I  have  no  time  to  write  more. 
Thucydides  prospers. 


XXII.       TO   EBV.  J.  TUCKER. 

December  28,  1827. 

Our  united  wannest  thanks  to  you  and  to  your  sisters  for 
the  joy  you  have  felt  about  Rugby.  For  the  labor  I  care 
nothing,  if  God  gives  me  health  and  strength  as  He  has  for 
the  last  eight  years.  But  whether  I  shall  be  able  to  make 
the  school  what  I  wish  to  make  it,  —  I  do  not  mean  wholly 
or  perfectly,  but  in  some  degree,  —  that  is,  an  instrument  of 
God's  glory,  and  of  the  everlasting  good  of  those  who  come  to 
it,  —  that  indeed  is  an  awful  anxiety. 


XXIII.       TO   REV.  E.  HAWKINS. 

Laleham,  December  28,  1827. 

Your  kind  little  note  ought  not  to  have  remained  thus  long 
unanswered,  especially  as  you  have  a  most  particular  claim  on 
my  thanks  for  your  active  kindness  in  the  whole  business,  and 

*  His  gymnastic  exercises. 


88  LIFE  OP  DR.   ARNOLD. 

for  your  character  of  me  to  Sir  H.  Halford,  that  I  was  likely 
to  improve  generally  the  system  of  public  education,  a  state- 
ment which  Sir  H.  Halford  told  me  had  weighed  most  strongly 
in  my  favor.  You  would  not,  I  am  sure,  have  recommended 
me,  if  you  had  supposed  that  I  should  alter  things  violently, 
or  for  the  pleasure  of  altering ;  but  as  I  have  at  different 
times  expressed  in  conversation  my  disapprobation  of  much  of 
the  existing  system,  I  find  that  some  people  expect  that  I  am 
going  to  sweep  away  root  and  branch,  quod  absit !  I  need  not 
tell  you  how  wholly  unexpected  this  result  has  been  to  us,  and 
I  hope  I  need  not  say  also  what  a  solemn  and  almost  over- 
whelming responsibility  I  feel  is  imposed  on  me.  I  would 
hope  to  have  the  prayers  of  my  friends,  together  with  my  own, 
for  a  supply  of  that  true  wisdom  which  is  required  for  such  a 
business.  To  be  sure,  how  small  in  comparison  is  the  im- 
portance of  my  teaching  the  boys  to  read  Greek,  and  how 
light  would  be  a  schoolmaster's  duty  if  that  were  all  of  it. 
Yet,  if  my  health  and  strength  continue  as  they  have  been  for 
the  last  eight  years,  I  do  not  fear  the  labor,  and  really  eujoy 
the  prospect  of  it.  I  am  so  glad  that  we  are  likely  to  meet 
soon  in  Oxford 


XXFV.       TO    REV.  JOHN   TUCKER. 

Laleham,  March  2. 

With  regard  to  reforms  at  Rugby,  give  me  credit,  I  must 
beg  of  you,  for  a  most  sincere  desire  to  make  it  a  place  of 
Christian  education.  At  the  same  tune  my  object  will  be,  if 
possible,  to  form  Christian  men,  for  Christian  boys  I  can 
scarcely  hope  to  make ;  I  mean  that,  from  the  natural  im- 
perfect state  of  boyhood,  they  are  not  susceptible  of  Christian 
principles  in  their  full  development  upon  their  practice,  and  I 
suspect  that  a  low  standard  of  morals  in  many  respects  must 
be  tolerated  amongst  them,  as  it  was  on  a  larger  scale  in  what 
I  consider  the  boyhood  of  the  human  race.*  But  I  believe 
that  a  great  deal  may  be  done,  and  I  should  be  most  unwilling 
to  undertake  the  business,  if  I  did  not  trust  that  much  might 
be  done.  Our  impressions  of  the  exterior  of  everything  that 

*  See  Sermons,  vol.  ii.  p.  440.  His  later  sermons  and  letters  seem  to 
indicate  that  subsequently  this  opinion  would  not  have  been  expressed 
quite  uo  strongly. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  89 

we  saw  during  our  visit  to  Dr.  Wooll  in  January,  were  very 
favorable ;  as  at  the  same  time  that  I  anticipate  a  great  many 
difficulties  in  the  management  of  affairs,  before  they  can  be 
brought  into  good  train.  But  both  M.  and  myself,  I  think, 
are  well  inclined  to  commence  our  work,  and  if  my  health  and 
strength  be  spared  me,  I  certainly  feel  that  in  no  situation 
could  I  have  the  prospect  of  employment  so  congenial  to  my 
tastes  and  qualifications  ;  that  is,  supposing  always  that  I  find 
that  I  can  manage  the  change  from  older  pupils  to  a  school. 
Your  account  of  yourself  was  most  delightful :  my  life  for 
some  years  has  been  one  of  great  happiness,  but  I  fear  not  of 
happiness  so  safe  and  permitted.  I  am  hurried  on  too  fast  in 
the  round  of  duties  and  of  domestic  enjoyments,  and  I  greatly 
feel  the  need,  and  shall  do  so  even  more  at  Rugby,  unless  I 
take  heed  in  time,  of  stopping  to  consider  my  ways,  and  to 
recognize  my  own  infinite  weakness  and  unworthiness.  I 
have  read  the  "  Letters  on  the  Church,"  and  reviewed  them 
in  the  Edinburgh  Review  for  September,  1826,  if  you  care  to 
know  what  I  think  of  them.  I  think  that  any  discussion  on 
church  matters  must  do  good,  if  it  is  likely  to  lead  to  any 
reform ;  for  any  change,  such  as  is  within  any  human  calcu- 
lation, would  be  an  improvement.  What  might  not do, 

if  he  would  set  himself  to  work  in  the  House  of  Lords,  not  to 
patch  up  this  hole  or  that,  but  to  recast  the  whole  corrupt 
system,  which  in  many  points  stands  just  as  it  did  in  the 
worst  tunes  of  Popery,  only  reading  -'King,"  or  "Aristoc- 
racy," in  the  place  of  "  Pope." 

XXV.      TO   KEY.  F.  C.  BLACKSTONE. 

Laleham,  March  14.  1828. 

We  are  resigning  private  pupils,  I  imagine,  with 

very  different  feelings ;  you  looking  forward  to  a  life  of  less 
distraction,  and  I  to  one  of  far  greater,  insomuch  that  all  here 
seems  quietness  itself  in  comparison  with  what  I  shall  meet 
with  at  Rugby.  There  will  be  a  great  deal  to  do,  I  suspect, 
in  every  way,  when  I  first  enter  on  my  situation  ;  but  still,  if 
my  health  continues,  I  do  not  at  all  dread  it,  but  on  the  con- 
trary look  forward  to  it  with  much  pleasure.  I  have  long  since 
looked  upon  education  as  my  business  in  life ;  and  just  before 
I  stood  for  Rugby,  I  had  offered  myself  as  a  candidate  for  the 
historical  professorship  at  the  London  University ;  and  had 
8* 


90  LIFE   OP  DR.   ARNOLD. 

indulged  in  various  dreams  of  attaching  myself  to  that  institu- 
tion, and  trying  as  far  as  possible  to  influence  it.  In  Rugby 
there  is  a  fairer  field,  because  I  start  with  greater  advantages. 
You  know  that  I  never  ran  down  public  schools  in  the  lump, 
but  grieved  that  their  exceeding  capabilities  were  not  turned 
to  better  account;  and  if  I  find  myself  unable  in  time  to 
mend  what  I  consider  faulty  in  them,  it  will  at  any  rate  be  a 
practical  lesson  to  teach  me  to  judge  charitably  of  others  who 
do  not  reform  public  institutions  as  much  as  is  desirable.  I 
suppose  that  you  have  not  regarded  all  the  public  events  of 
the  last  few  months  without  some  interest.  My  views  of 
things  certainly  become  daily  more  reforming ;  and  what  I 
above  all  other  things  wish  to  see,  is  a  close  union  between 
Christian  reformers  and  those  who  are  often,  as  I  think, 
falsely  charged  with  being  enemies  of  Christianity.  It  is  a 
part  of  the  perfection  of  the  Gospel  that  it  is  attractive  to  all 
those  who  love  truth  and  goodness,  as  soon  as  it  is  known  in 
its  true  nature,  whilst  it  tends  to  clear  away  those  erroneous 
views  and  evil  passions  with  which  philanthropy  and  philos- 
ophy, so  long  as  they  stand  aloof  from  it,  are  ever  in  some 
degree  corrupted.  My  feelings  toward  men  whom  I  believe 
to  be  sincere  lovers  of  truth  and  the  happiness  of  their  fellow- 
creatures,  while  they  seek  these  ends  otherwise  than  through 
the  medium  of  the  Gospel,  is  rather  that  they  are  not  far 
from  the  kingdom  of  God,  and  might  be  brought  into  it 
altogether,  than  that  they  are  enemies  whose  views  are  di- 
rectly opposed  to  our  own.  That  they  are  not  brought  into 
it  is,  I  think,  to  a  considerable  degree,  chargeable  upon  the 
professors  of  Christianity;  the  High  Church  party  seeming 
to  think  that  the  establishment  in  Church  and  State  is  all 
in  all,  and  that  the  Gospel  principles  must  be  accommodated 
to  our  existing  institutions,  instead  of  offering  a  pattern  by 
which  those  institutions  should  be  purified ;  and  the  Evan- 
gelicals by  their  ignorance  and  narrow-mindedness,  and  their 
seeming  wish  to  keep  the  world  and  the  Church  ever  distinct, 
instead  of  laboring  to  destroy  the  one  by  increasing  the  in- 
fluence of  the  other,  and  making  the  kingdoms  of  the  world 
indeed  the  kingdoms  of  Christ. 


LIFE   OF   DR.    ARNOLD.  91 

XXVI.  TO   AUGUSTUS    HARE,    ESQ. 

Laleham,  March  7,  1828. 

I  trust  that  you  have  recovered  your  accident  at 

Perugia,  and  that  you  are  enabled  to  enjoy  your  stay  at  that 
glorious  Rome.  I  think  that  I  have  never  written  to  you 
since  my  return  from  it  last  spring,  when  I  was  so  completely 
overpowered  with  admiration  and  delight  at  the  matchless 
beauty  and  solemnity  of  Rome  and  its  neighborhood.  But  I 
think  my  greatest  delight  after  all  was  in  the  society  of  Bun- 
sen,  the  Prussian  minister  at  Rome He  reminded 

me  continually  of  you  more  than  any  other  man  whom  I 
know,  and  chiefly  by  his  entire  and  enthusiastic  admiration  of 
everything  great  and  excellent  and  beautiful,  not  stopping  to 
see  or  care  for  minute  faults  ;  and  though  I  cannot  rid  myself 
of  that  critical  propensity,  yet  I  can  heartily  admire  and 

almost  envy  those  who  are  without  it I  have  derived 

great  benefit  from  sources  of  information,  that  your  brother 
has  at  different  times  recommended  to  me,  and  the  perusal  of 
some  of  his  articles  in  the  "  Geusses  at  Truth  "  has  made  me 
exceedingly  desirous  of  becoming  better  acquainted  with  him, 
as  I  am  sure  that  his  conversation  would  be  really  profitable 
to  me  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  as  well  as  delightful. 
And  I  have  a  double  pleasure  in  saying  this,  because  I  did 
not  do  him  justice  formerly  in  my  estimate  of  him,  and  am 
anxious  to  do  myself  justice  now  by  saying  that  I  have  learnt 
to  judge  more  truly.  You  will  have  heard  of  my  changed 
prospects  in  consequence  of  my  election  at  Rugby.  It  will  be 
a  severe  pang  to  me  to  leave  Laleham  ;  but  otherwise  I  rejoice 
in  my  appointment,  and  hope  to  be  useful  if  life  and  health 

are  spared  me I  think  of  going  to  Leipsic,  Dresden, 

and  Prague,  to  worship  the  Elbe  and  the  country  of  John 
Huss  and  Ziska.  All  here  unite  in  kindest  remembrances  to 
you.  and  I  wish  you  would  convey  to  the  very  stones  and  air 
of  Jioiuo  the  expression  of  my  fond  recollection  for  them. 

XXVII.  TO    REV.    JOHN    TUCKER. 

Laleham,  May  25, 1828. 

(After  speaking  of  Mr.  Tucker's  proposed  intention  of 
going  as  a  missionary  to  India.)  If  you  should  go  to  India 
before  we  have  an  opportunity  of  meeting  again,  I  would 


92  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

earnestly  beg  of  you  not  to  go  away  with  the  notion,  which 
I  sometimes  fear  that  my  oldest  friends  are  getting  of  me, 
that  I  am  become  a  hard  man,  given  up  to  literary  and  scho- 
lastic pursuits,  and  full  of  worldly  and  political  views  of 
things.  It  has  given  me  very  great  pain  to  think  that  some 
of  those  whom  I  most  love,  and  with  whom  I  would  most  fain 
to  be  one  in  spirit,  regard  my  views  of  things  as  jarring  with 
their  own,  and  are  losing  towards  me  that  feeling  of  Chris- 
tian brotherhood  which  I  think  they  once  entertained.  I  am 
not  in  the  slightest  degree  speaking  of  any  offence  given  or 
received,  or  any  personal  decay  of  regard,  but  I  fancy  they 
look  upon  me  as  not  quite  one  with  themselves,  and  as  having 
my  affections  fixed  upon  lower  objects.  Assuredly,  I  have 
no  right  to  regret  that  I  should  be  thought  deficient  in  points 
in  which  I  know  I  am  deficient ;  but  I  would  most  earnestly 
protest  against  being  thought  wilfully  and  contentedlydeficient 
in  them,  and  not  caring  to  be  otherwise.  And  I  cannot  help 
fearing  that  my  conversation  with  you  last  winter  twelvemonth 
led  you  on  to  something,  at  least,  of  a  similar  impression. 

XXVIII.      TO   J.    T.    COLERIDGE,    EgQ. 

Laleham,  April  24,  1828. 

It  seems  an  age  since  I  have  seen  you  or  written  to  you ; 
and  I  hear  that  you  are  now  again  returned  to  London,  and 
that  your  eldest  boy,  I  am  grieved  to  find,  is  not  so  well  and 
strong  as  you  could  wish.  I  could  really  be  half  romantic, 
yet  I  do  not  know  that  I  ought  to  use  any  such  equivocal 
epithet.  When  I  think  how  little  intercourse  I  hold  with  my 
most  valued  friends,  it  is  almost  awful  to  feel  the  tendencies 
!>f  life  to  pare  down  one's  affections  and  feelings  to  the  mini- 
mum compatible  with  anything  like  humanity.  There  is 
one's  trade  and  one's  family,  and  beyond  it  seems  as  if  the 
great  demon  of  worldly-mindedness  would  hardly  allow  one 
to  bestow  a  thought  or  care. 

But,  if  it  please  God,  I  will  not  sink  into  this  state  without 
some  struggles,  at  least,  against  it.  I  saw  Dyson  the  other 
day  in  Oxford,  where  I  went  to  take  my  degree  of  B.  D.,  and 
he  and  his  wife  were  enough  to  freshen  one's  spirit  for  some 
time  to  come.  I  wish  that  you  and  I  could  meet  of tener,  and 
instead  of  that,  I  fear  that  when  I  am  at  Rugby,  we  shall 
meet  even  seldomer ;  but  I  trust  that  we  shall  meet  some 


LIFE   OP  DR.   ARNOLD.  93 

times  still.  You  know,  perhaps,  —  and  yet  how  should  you  ? 
—  that  my  sixth  child,  and  fourth  son,  was  born  on  the  7th  of 
April,  and  that  his  dear  mother  has  been  again  preserved  to 
me.  All  the  rest  of  my  children  are  quite  well,  and  they  are 
also  tolerably  well  at  the  other  houses,  though  the  coming 
parting  is  a  sad  cloud  both  to  them  and  to  us.  Still,  without 
any  affectation,  I  believe  that  John  Keble  is  right,  and  that 
it  is  good  for  us  to  leave  Laleham,  because  I  feel  that  we  are 
daily  getting  to  regard  it  as  too  much  of  a  home.  I  cannot 
tell  you  how  we  both  love  it,  and  its  perfect  peace  seems  at 
times  an  appalling  contrast  to  the  publicity  of  Rugby.  I  am 
sure  that  nothing  could  stifle  this  regret,  were  it  not  for  my 
full  consciousness  that  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  rest  here, 
but  with  labor ;  and  then  I  can  aud  do  look  forward  to  the 
labor  with  nothing  but  satisfaction,  if  my  health  and  faculties 
be  still  spared  to  me. 

.1  went  down  to  Rugby,  a  fortnight  since,  to  meet  the 
trustees.  The  terms  of  the  school,  which  were  far  to  low, 
have  been  raised  on  my  representation ;  and  there  is  some 
possibility  of  my  being  put  into  the  situation  of  the  head- 
masters of  Eton  and  Westminster,  that  is,  to  have  nothing 

to  do  with  any  boarders I  have  got  six  maps  for 

Thucydides,  all  entirely  original,  and  I  have  nearly  finished 
naif  of  the  last  book ;  so  that  I  hope  I  may  say  almost  "  Ita- 
liam  !  Italiam !  " 


XXIX.      TO   THE   REV.    P.    C.    BLACKSTONE. 

Laleham,  July  11, 1828. 

It  would  be  foolish  to  talk  of  the  deep  love  that  I 

bear  to  Laleham,  and  the  wrench  which  it  will  be  to  part  from 
it ;  but  this  is  quite  consistent  with  a  lively  interest  in  Rugby, 

and  when  I  strolled  with in  the  meadows  there,  during 

our  visit  of  last  week,  I  thought  that  I  already  began  to  feel 
it  as  my  home There  will  be  enough  to  do,  I  im- 
agine, without  any  addition ;  though  I  really  feel  very  san- 
guine as  to  my  own  relish  for  the  work,  and  think  that  it  will 
come  more  naturally  to  me  than  I  at  first  imagined.  May 
God  grant  that  I  may  labor  with  an  entire  confidence  in  Him, 
and  with  none  in  myself  without  Him. 


94  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

XXX.      TO    W.    W.    HULL,    ESQ. 

Laleham,  July  29,  1828. 

I  never  would  publish*  without  a  considerable 

revision  of  them.  I  well  know  their  incompleteness,  and 
suspect  much  worse  faults  in  them.  Do  not  imagine  that  I 
neglect  your  remarks ;  far  from  it :  I  would  attend  to  them 
earnestly,  and  would  soften  gladly  anything  that  was  too 
harsh,  or  that  might  give  offence,  and  would  alter  the  mere 
inadvertencies  of  my  hasty  writing  in  point  of  style.  But 
certainly  the  character  of  the  style  I  could  not  alter,  because 
no  other  would  be  natural  to  me ;  and  though  I  am  far  from 
wishing  other  people  to  write  as  I  do,  yet  for  myself  I  hold 
it  best  to  follow  my  own  fashion 

I  owe  it  to  Rugby  not  to  excite  needless  scandal  by  an 
isolated  and  uncalled-for  publication.  I  shall  never  be  Mr. 
Dean,  nor  do  I  wish  it ;  but  having  undertaken  the  office  of 
Dr.  Wooll,  with  double  /  or  single  /,  as  best  suits  your  fancy, 
I  do  wish  to  do  my  utmost  in  it,  and  not  to  throw  difficulties 
in  my  own  way  by  any  imprudence.  This,  of  course,  would 
apply  either  to  minor  points  or  to  those  on  which  I  distrusted 
my  own  competent  knowledge.  Where  I  am  fully  decided 
on  a  matter  of  consequence,  I  would  speak  out  as  plainly  and 
boldly  as  your  heart  could  wish. 

We  are  all  in  the  midst  of  confusion  ;  the  books  all  packed, 
and  half  the  furniture ;  and  on  Tuesday,  if  God  will,  we  shall 
leave  this  dear  place,  this  nine  years'  home  of  such  exceeding 
happiness.  But  it  boots  not  to  look  backwards.  Forwards, 
forwards,  forwards,  —  should  be  one's  motto.  I  trust  you  will 
see  us  in  our  new  dwelling  ere  long ;  I  shall  want  to  see  my 
old  friends  there  to  wear  off  the  gloss  of  its  newness. 


XXXI.       TO    THE   EEV.    JOHN   TUCKER. 

Laleham,  August,  1828. 

I  am  inclined  to  write  to  you  once  again  before  we  leave 
Laleham,  as  a  sort  of  farewell  from  this  dear  place  ;  and  you 
shall  answer  it  with  a  welcome  to  Rugby.  You  fancy  us 
already  at  Rugby,  and  so  does  J.  Keble,  from  whom  I 

•In  allusion  to  the  first  volume  of  his  Sermons,  which  was  now  iu  the 
process  of  publication. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  95 

received  a  very  kind  letter  some  time  since,  directed  to  me 
there.  But  we  do  not  move  till  Tuesday,  when  we  go, 
fourteen  souls,  to  Oxford,  having  taken  the  whole  coach ;  and 
on  Wednesday  we  hope  to  reach  Rugby,  having  in  like 
manner  secured  the  whole  Leicester  coach  from  Oxford  to 
Rugby.  Our  goods  and  chattels,  under  convoy  of  our  gardener, 
are  at  this  time  somewhere  on  the  Grand  Junction  Canal,  and 
will  reach  Rugby  I  hope  this  evening.  The  poor  house  here 
is  sadly  desolate ;  all  the  carpets  up,  half  the  furniture  gone, 
and  signs  of  removal  everywhere  visible.  And  so  ends  the 
first  act  of  my  life  since  I  arrived  at  manhood.  For  the  last 
eight  years  it  has  been  a  period  of  as  unruffled  happiness  as 

I  should  think  could  ever  be  experienced  by  man.     M 's 

illness,  in  1821,  is  almost  its  only  dark  spot;  —  and  how  was 
that  softened  and  comforted !  It  is  almost  a  fearful  consid- 
eration ;  and  yet  that  is  a  superstitious  notion,  and  an 
unbelieving  one,  too,  which  cannot  receive  God's  mercies  as 
his  free  gift,  but  will  always  be  looking  out  for  something 
wherewith  to  purchase  them.  An  humbling  consideration 
much  rather  it  is  and  ought  to  be  ;  yet  all  life  is  humbling,  if 
we  think  upon  it,  and  our  greatest  mercies,  which  we  some- 
times least  think  of,  are  the  most  humbling  of  all 

The  Rugby  prospect  I  contemplate  with  a  very  strong  inter- 
est :  the  work  I  am  not  afraid  of,  if  I  can  get  my  proper  ex- 
ercises ;  but  I  want  absolute  play,  like  a  boy,  and  neither  riding 
nor  walking  will  make  up  for  my  leaping-pole  and  gallows, 
and  bathing,  when  the  youths  used  to  go  with  me,  and  I  felt 
completely  for  the  time  a  boy  as  they  were.  It  is  this  entire 
relaxation,  I  think,  at  intervals,  such  again  as  my  foreign 
tours  have  afforded,  that  gives  me  so  keen  an  appetite  for  my 
work  at  other  times,  and  has  enabled  me  to  go  through  it  not 
only  with  no  fatigue,  but  with  a  sense  of  absolute  pleasure. 
I  believe  that  I  am  going  to  publish  a  volume  of  Sermons. 
You  will  think  me  crazed  perhaps ;  but  I  have  two  reasons 
for  it ;  chiefly,  the  repeated  exhortations  of  several  individuals 
for  the  last  three  or  four  years ;  but  these  would  not  alone 
have  urged  me  to  it,  did  I  not  wish  to  state  for  my  own  sake 
what  my  opinions  really  are,  on  points  where  I  know  they 
have  been  grievously  misrepresented.  Whilst  I  lived  here  in 
Laleham  my  opinions  mattered  to  nobody ;  but  I  know  that 
while  I  was  a  candidate  for  Rugby,  it  was  said  in  Oxford  that 
I  did  not  preach  the  Gospel,  nor  even  touch  upon  the  great 
doctrines  of  Christianity  in  my  sermons,  and  if  this  same 


96  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

impression  be  prevalent  now,  it  will  be  mischievous  to  the 
school  in  a  high  degree.  Now,  if  what  I  do  really  preach  be 
to  any  man's  notions  not  the  Gospel,  I  cannot  help  it,  and 
must  be  content  to  abide  by  the  consequences  of  his  opinion; 
but  I  do  not  want  to  be  misunderstood,  and  accused  of  omit- 
ting things  which  I  do  not  omit. 


XXXII.       TO    THK    REV.    GEORGE    CORNISH. 

Rugby,  August  16,  1828. 

If  I  can  do  my  work  as  I  ought  to  do  it,  we  shall 

have  every  reason  to  be  thankful  for  the  change.  I  must 
not,  it  is  true,  think  of  dear  old  Laleham,  and  all  that  we 
have  left  there,  or  the  perfect  peace  of  our  eight  years  of 
wedded  life  passed  there  together.  It  is  odd  that  both  you 
and  I  should  now  for  the  first  time  in  our  lives  be  moving 
from  our  parents'  neighborhood ;  but  in  this  respect  our  hap- 
piness was  very  uncommon,  and  to  me  altogether  Laleham 
was  so  like  a  place  of  premature  rest,  that  I  believe  I  ought 
to  be  sincerely  thankful  that  I  am  called  to  a  scene  of  harder 

and  more  anxious  labor The  boys  come  back  next 

Saturday  week.  So  here  begins  the  second  act  of  our  lives. 
May  God  bless  it  to  us,  and  make  it  help  forward  the  great 
end  of  all. 


CHAPTER    III. 


SCHOOL   LIFE   AT  RUGBY. 

IT  would  be  useless  to  give  any  chronological  details 
of  a  life  so  necessarily  monotonous  as  that  of  the  Head- 
master of  a  public  school ;  and  it  is  accordingly  only 
intended  to  describe  the  general  system  which  Dr.  Ar- 
nold pursued  during  the  fourteen  years  he  was  at 
Rugby.  Yet  some  apology  may  seem  to  be  due  for  the 
length  of  a  chapter,  which  to  the  general  reader  must 


LIFE    OF   DR.    ARNOLD.  97 

be  comparatively  deficient  in  interest.  Something 
must,  indeed,  be  forgiven  to  the  natural  inclination  to 
dwell  on  those  recollections  of  his  life,  which  to  his 
pupils  are  the  most  lively  and  the  most  recent  —  some- 
thing to  the  almost  unconscious  tendency  to  magnify 
those  scenes  which  are  most  nearly  connected  with 
what  is  endeared  to  one's  self.  But  independently  of 
any  local  or  personal  considerations,  it  has  been  felt 
that  if  any  part  of  Dr.  Arnold's  work  deserved  special 
mention,  it  was  his  work  at  Rugby ;  and  that  if  it  was 
to  be  of  any  use  to  those  of  his  own  profession  who 
would  take  any  interest  in  it,  it  could  only  be  made 
so  by  a  full  and  minute  account. 

Those  who  look  back  upon  the  state  of  English  ed- 
ucation in  the  year  1827,  must  remember  how  the  feel- 
ing of  dissatisfaction  with  existing  institutions,  which 
had  begun  in  many  quarters  to  display  itself,  had 
already  directed  considerable  attention  to  the  condi- 
tion of  public  schools.  The  range  of  classical  reading, 
in  itself  confined,  and  with  no  admixture  of  other  in- 
formation, had  been  subject  to  vehement  attacks  from 
the  liberal  party  generally,  on  the  ground  of  its  alleged 
narrowness  and  inutility.  And  the  more  undoubted 
evil  of  the  absence  of  systematic  attempts  to  give  a 
more  directly  Christian  character  to  what  constituted 
the  education  of  the  whole  English  gentry,  was  becom- 
ing more  and  more  a  scandal  in  the  eyes  of  religious 
men,  who  at  the  close  of  the  last  century  and  the 
beginning  of  this  —  Wilberforce,  for  example,  and 
Bowdler  —  had  lifted  up  their  voices  against  it.  A 
complete  reformation,  or  a  complete  destruction  of 
the  whole  system,  seemed  to  many  persons  sooner  or 
later  to  be  inevitable.  The  difficulty,  however,  of 
making  the  first  step,  where  the  alleged  objection  to 
alteration  was  its  impracticability,  was  not  to  be  easily 
surmounted.  The  mere  resistance  to  change  which 
clings  to  old  institutions,  was  in  itself  a  considerable 
obstacle,  and,  in  the  case  of  some  of  the  public  schools, 
from  the  nature  of  their  constitution,  in  the  first  in- 


98  LIFE   OP  DR.    ARNOLD. 

stance  almost  insuperable;  and  whether  amongst 
those  who  were  engaged  in  the  existing  system,  or 
those  who  were  most  vehemently  opposed  to  it,  for 
opposite  but  obvious  reason,  it  must  have  been  ex- 
tremely difficult  to  find  a  man  who  would  attempt, 
or  if  he  attempted,  carry  through  any  extensive  im- 
provement. . 

It  was  at  this  juncture  that  Dr.  Arnold  was  elected 
head-master  of  a  school  which,  whilst  it  presented  a 
fair  average  specimen  of  the  public  schools  at  that  time, 
yet  by  its  constitution  imposed  fewer  shackles  on  its 
head,  and  offered  a  more  open  field  for  alteration  than 
was  the  case  at  least  with  Eton  or  Winchester.  The 
post  itself,  in  spite  of  the  publicity,  and  to  a  certain 
degree  formality,  which  it  entailed  upon  him,  was  in 
many  respects  remarkably  suited  to  his  natural  tastes ; 
—  to  his  love  of  tuition,  which  had  now  grown  so 
strongly  upon  him,  that  he  declared  sometimes  that  he 
could  hardly  live  without  such  employment ;  to  the 
vigor  and  spirits  which  fitted  him  rather  to  deal  with 
the  young  than  the  old ;  to  the  desire  of  carrying  out 
his  favorite  ideas  of  uniting  things  secular  with  things 
spiritual,  and  of  introducing  the  highest  principles  of 
action  into  regions  comparatively  uncongenial  to  their 
reception. 

Even  his  general  interest  in  public  matters  was  not 
without  its  use  in  his  new  station.  Many,  indeed,  both 
of  his  admirers  and  of  his  opponents,  used  to  lament 
that  a  man  with  such  views  and  pursuits  should  be 
placed  in  such  a  situation.  "  What  a  pity,"  it  was 
said  on  the  one  hand,  "  that  a  man  fit  to  be  a  states- 
man should  be  employed  in  teaching  school-boys." 
"  What  a  shame,"  it  was  said  on  the  other  hand,  "that 
the  head-master  of  Rugby  should  be  employed  in  writ- 
ing essays  and  pamphlets."  But,  even  had  there  been 
no  connection  between  the  two  spheres  of  his  interest, 
and  had  the  inconvenience  resulting  from  his  public 
prominence  been  far  greater  than  it  was,  it  would  have 
been  the  necessary  price  of  having  him  at  all  in  that 


LIFE    OF   DR.    ARNOLD.  99 

place.  He  would  not  have  been  himself,  had  he  not 
felt  and  written  as  he  did ;  and  he  could  not  have 
endured  to  live  under  the  grievance  of  remaining  silent 
on  subjects,  on  which  he  believed  it  to  be  his  most 
sacred  duty  to  speak  what  he  thought. 

As  it  was,  however,  the  one  sphere  played  into  the 
other.  Whatever  labor  he  -bestowed  on  his  literary 
works  was  only  part  of  that  constant  progress  of  self- 
education  which  he  thought  essential  to  the  right  dis- 
charge of  his  duties  as  a  teacher.  Whatever  interest 
he  felt  in  the  struggles  of  the  political  and  ecclesiasti- 
cal world,  reacted  on  his  interest  in  the  school,  and 
invested  it  in  his  eyes  with  a  new  importance.  When 
he  thought  of  the  social  evils  of  the  country,  it  awak- 
ened a  corresponding  desire  to  check  the  thoughtless 
waste  and  selfishness  of  school-boys ;  a  corresponding 
sense  of  the  aggravation  of  those  evils  by  the  insolence 
and  want  of  sympathy  too  frequently  shown  by  the 
children  of  the  wealthier  classes  towards  the  lower 
orders ;  a  corresponding  desire  that  they  should  there 
imbibe  the  first  principles  of  reverence  to  law  and 
regard  for  the  poor  which  the  spirit  of  the  age  seemed 
to  him  so  little  to  encourage.  When  he  thought  of 
the  evils  of  the  Church,  he  would  "turn  from  the 
thought  of  the  general  temple  in  ruins,  and  see  wheth- 
er they  could  not,  within  the  walls  of  their  own  little 
particular  congregation,"  endeavor  to  realize  what  he 
believed  to  be  its  true  idea ;  "  what  use  they  could 
make  of  the  vestiges  of  it  still  left  amongst  themselves 
—  common  reading  of  the  Scriptures,  common  prayer, 
and  the  communion."  (Serm.  vol.  iv.  pp.  266,  316.) 
Thus,  "  whatever  of  striking  good  or  evil  happened  in 
any  part  of  the  wide  range  of  English  dominion  "  — 
brought  to  his  thoughts  "  on  what  important  scenes 
some  of  his  own  scholars  might  be  called  upon  to 
enter ;  "  "  whatever  new  and  important  things  took 
place  in  the  world  of  thought,"  suggested  the  hope 
"  that  they,  when  they  went  forth  amidst  the  strifes 
of  tongues  and  of  minds,  might  be  endowed  with  the 


100  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

spirit  of  wisdom  and  power."  (Senn.  vol.  v.  p.  405.) 
And  even  in  the  details  of  the  school,  it  would  be  curi> 
ous  to  trace  how  he  recognized  in  the  peculiar  vices  of 
boys  the  same  evils  which,  when  full  grown,  became 
the  source  of  so  much  social  mischief:  how  he  gov- 
erned the  school  precisely  on  the  same  principles  as  he 
would  have  governed  a  great  empire ;  how  constantly, 
to  his  own  mind  or  to  his  scholars,  he  exemplified 
the  highest  truths  of  theology  and  philosophy  in  the 
simplest  relations  of  the  boys*  towards  each  other,  or 
towards  him. 

In  entering  upon  his  office  he  met  with  difficulties, 
many  of  which  have  since  passed  away,  but  which 
must  be  borne  in  mind,  if  points  are  here  dwelt  upon 
that  have  now  ceased  to  be  important,  but  were  by  no 
means  insignificant  or  obvious  when  he  came  to  Rugby. 
Nor  did  his  system  at  once  attain  its  full  maturity.  He 
was  a  long  time  feeling  his  way  amongst  the  various  in- 
stitutions which  he  formed  or  invented : — he  was  con- 
stantly striving  after  an  ideal  standard  of  perfection, 
which  he  was  conscious  that  he  had  never  attained ;  to 
the  improvements  which,  in  a  short  time,  began  to  take, 
place  in  other  schools — to  those  at  Harrow,  under  his 
friend  Dr.  Longley,  and  to  those  at  Winchester,  under 
Dr.  Moberley,  to  which  he  alluded  in  one  of  his  later 
sermons,  (vol.  v.  p.  150,)  he  often  looked  as  models 
for  himself ; — to  suggestions  from  persons  very  much 
younger  than  himself,  not  unfrequently  from  his  for- 
mer pupils,  with  regard  to  the  course  of  reading,  or  to 
alterations  in  his  manner  of  preaching,  or  to  points  of 
discipline,  he  would  often  listen  with  the  greatest  def- 
erence. His  own  mind  was  constantly  devising  new 
measures  for  carrying  out  his  several  views.  "  The 
school,"  he  said,  on  first  coming,  "  is  quite  enough  to 
employ  any  man's  love  of  reform ;  and  it  is  much 
pleasanter  to  think  of  evils,  which  you  may  yourself 
hope  to  relieve,  than  those  with  regard  to  which  you 
can  give  nothing  but  vain  wishes  and  opinions." 
M  There  is  enough  of  Toryism  in  my  nature,"  he  said 


LIFE   OF   DR.    ARNOLD.  101 

on  evils  being  mentioned  to  him  in  the  place,  "to 
make  me  very  apt  to  sleep  contentedly  over  things  as 
they  are,  and  therefore  I  hold  it  to  be  most  true  kind- 
ness when  any  one  directs  my  attention  to  points  in 
the  school  which  are  alleged  to  be  going  on  ill." 

The  perpetual  succession  of  changes  which  resulted 
from  this  was  by  many  objected  to  as  excessive,  and 
calculated  to  endanger  the  stability  of  his  whole  sys- 
tem. "  He  wakes  every  morning,"  it  was  said  of  him, 
"  with  the  impression  that  everything  is  an  open  ques- 
tion." But  rapid  as  might  be  the  alterations  to  which 
the  details  of  his  system  were  subjected,  the  general 
principles  remained  fixed.  The  unwillingness  which 
he  had,  even  in  common  life,  to  act  in  any  individual 
case,  without  some  general  law  to  which  he  might  refer 
it,  ran  through  everything,  and  at  times  it  would  almost 
seem  as  if  he  invented  universal  rules  with  the  express 
object  of  meeting  particular  cases.  Still,  if  in  smaller 
matters  this  gave  an  occasional  impression  of  fanciful- 
ness  or  inconsistency,  it  was,  in  greater  matters,  one 
chief  cause  of  the  confidence  which  he  inspired. 
Amidst  all  the  plans  that  came  before  him,  he  felt, 
and  he  made  others  feel,  that  whatever  might  be  the 
merits  of  the  particular  question  at  issue,  there  were 
principles  behind  which  lay  far  more  deeply  seated 
than  any  mere  question  of  school  government,  which 
he  was  ready  to  carry  through  at  whatever  cost,  and 
from  which  no  argument  or  menace  could  move  him. 

Of  the  mere  external  administration  of  the  school, 
little  need  here  be  said.  Many  difficulties  which  he 
encountered  were  alike  provoked  and  subdued  by  the 
peculiarities  of  his  own  character.  The  vehemence 
with  which  he  threw  himself  into  a  contest  against 
evil,  and  the  confidence  with  which  he  assailed  it, 
though  it  carried  him  through  perplexities  to  which  a 
more  cautious  man  would  have  yielded,  led  him  to  dis- 
regard interests  and  opinions  which  a  less  earnest  or 
a  less  sanguine  reformer  would  have  treated  with 
greater  consideration.  His  consciousness  of  his  own 

9* 


102  LIFE   OF   DR.    ARNOLD. 

integrity,  and  his  contempt  for  worldly  advantage, 
sometimes  led  him  to  require  from  others  more  than 
might  be  reasonably  expected  from  them,  and  to  adopt 
measures  which  the  world  at  large  was  sure  to  misin- 
terpret ;  yet  these  very  qualities,  in  proportion  as  they 
became  more  appreciated,  ultimately  secured  for  him 
a  confidence  beyond  what  could  have  been  gained  by 
the  most  deliberate  circumspection.  But  whatever 
were  the  temporary  exasperations  and  excitements 
thus  produced  in  his  dealings  with  others,  they  were 
gradually  removed  by  the  increasing  control  over  him- 
self and  his  work  which  he  acquired  in  later  years. 
The  readiness  which  he  showed  to  acknowledge  a  fault 
when  once  convinced  of  it,  as  well  as  to  persevere  in 
kindness  even  when  he  thought  himself  injured,  suc- 
ceeded in  healing  breaches  which,  with  a  less  forgiving 
or  less  honest  temper,  would  have  been  irreparable. 
His  union  of  firmness  with  tenderness  had  the  same 
effect  in  the  settlement  of  some  of  the  perplexities  of 
his  office,  which  in  others  would  have  resulted  from 
art  and  management ;  and  even  his  work  as  a  school- 
master cannot  be  properly  appreciated  without  remem- 
bering how,  in  the  end  of  his  career,  he  rallied  round 
him  the  public  feeling,  which  in  its  beginning  and 
middle,  as  will  appear  further  on,  had  been  so  widely 
estranged  from  them. 

With  regard  to  the  trustees  of  the  school,  entirely 
amicable  as  were  his  usual  relations  with  them,  and 
grateful  as  he  felt  to  them  for  their  active  support  and 
personal  friendliness,  he  from  the  first  maintained  that 
in  the  actual  working  of  the  school  he  must  be  com- 
pletely independent,  and  that  their  remedy,  if  they 
were  dissatisfied,  was  not  interference,  but  dismissal. 
On  this  condition  he  took  the  post,  and  any  attempt  to 
control  either  his  administration  of  the  school,  or  his 
own  private  occupations,  he  felt  bound  to  resist "  as  a 
duty,"  he  said  on  one  occasion,  "  not  only  to  himself 
but  to  the  master  of  every  foundation  school  in  Eng- 
land." 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  103 

Of  his  intercourse  with  the  assistant-masters  it  is  for 
obvious  reasons  impossible  to  speak  with  that  detail 
which  the  subject  deserves.  But  though  the  co-opera- 
tion of  his  colleagues  was  necessarily  thrown  into  the 
shade  by  the  activity  and  vigor  of  his  own  character, 
it  must  not  be  lost  sight  of  in  the  following  account, 
whether  it  be  regarded  as  one  of  his  most  characteris- 
tic means  of  administration,  or  as  an  instance  of  the 
powerful  influence  he  exercised  over  those  with  whom 
he  was  brought  into  close  contact.  It  was  one  of  his 
main  objects  to  increase  in  all  possible  ways  their  im- 
portance and  their  interest  in  the  place.  "  Nothing 
delights  me  more,"  he  said,  in  speaking  of  the  reputa- 
tion enjoyed  by  one  of  his  colleagues,  "  than  to  think 
that  boys  are  sent  here  for  his  sake  rather  than  for 
mine."  In  matters  of  school  discipline  he  seldom  or 
never  acted  without  consulting  them.  Every  three 
weeks  a  council  was  held,  in  which  all  school  matters 
were  discussed,  and  in  which  every  one  was  free  to 
express  his  opinion,  or  propose  any  measure  not  in 
contradiction  to  any  fundamental  principle  of  school 
administration,  and  in  which  it  would  not  unfre- 
quently  happen  that  he  was  himself  opposed  and  out- 
voted. He  was  anxious  that  they,  like  himself,  should 
have  time  to  read  for  their  own  improvement,  and  he 
was  also  glad  to  encourage  any  occasional  help  that 
they  might  render  to  the  neighboring  clergy.  But 
from  the  first  he  maintained  that  the  school  business 
was  to  occupy  their  main  and  undivided  interest.  The 
practice,  which  owing  to  their  lower  salaries  had  before 
prevailed,  of  uniting  some  parochial  cure  with  their 
school  duties,  was  entirely  abolished,  and  the  boarding- 
houses,  as  they  respectively  became  vacant,  he  placed 
exclusively  under  their  care.  The  connection  thus 
established  between  the  masters  and  the  boys  in  the 
several  houses  he  labored  to  strengthen  by  opening  in 
various  ways  means  for  friendly  communication  be- 
tween them  ;  —  every  house  was  thus  to  be  as  it  were 
an  epitome  of  the  whole  school.  On  the  one  hand 


104  LIFE   OF   DR.    ARNOLD. 

every  master  was  to  have,  as  he  used  to  say,  "  each  a 
horse  of  his  own  to  ride,"  independent  of  the  "  mere 
phantasmagoria  of  boys"  passing  successively  through 
their  respective  forms ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
boys  would  thus  have  some  one  at  hand  to  consult  in 
difficulties,  to  explain  their  case  if  they  got  into  trou- 
ble with  the  head-master,  or  the  other  masters,  to  send 
a  report  *  of  their  characters  home,  to  prepare  them 
for  confirmation,  and  in  general  to  stand  to  them  in 
the  relation  of  a  pastor  to  his  flock.  "  No  parochial 
ministry,"  he  would  say  to  them,  "  can  be  more  prop- 
erly a  cure  of  souls  than  yours ; "  and  though,  where 
it  might  happen  that  the  masters  were  laymen,  no  dif- 
ference was  made  between  their  duties  to  their  boys 
and  those  of  others,  yet  he  was  anxious,  as  a  general 
rule,  that  they  should  be  ordained  as  soon  as  possible, 
and  procured  from  the  bishop  of  the  diocese  a  recogni- 
tion of  their  situations  as  titles  for  orders.  Whatever, 
in  short,  he  was  in  his  own  department,  he  wished 
them  to  be  in  theirs ;  —  whatever  he  felt  about  his 
superintendence  of  the  whole  school,  he  wished  them 
to  feel  about  that  part  of  it  especially  committed  to 
them.  It  was  an  increasing  delight  to  him  to  inspire 
them  with  general  views  of  education  and  of  life,  by 
which  he  was  himself  so  fully  possessed ;  and  the  bond, 
thus  gradually  formed,  especially  when  in  his  later 
time  several  of  those  who  had  been  his  pupils  became 
his  colleagues,  grew  deeper  and  stronger  with  each 
successive  year  that  they  passed  in  the  place.  Out  of 
his  own  family,  there  was  no  circle,  of  which  he  was 
so  completely  the  animating  principle,  as  amongst 
those  who  co-operated  with  him  in  the  great  practical 
work  of  his  life ;  none  in  which  his  loss  was  more 
keenly  felt  to  be  irreparable,  or  his  example  more  in- 


*  This  practice  which  he  first  introduced  at  the  end  of  each  half-year, 
afterwards  became  monthly.  He  himself  used  latterly  to  write  besides 
every  half-year  to  the  parents  of  every  boy  in  his  own  form; — shortly,  it 
the  boy's  character  was  good — at  considerable  length,  if  he  had  cause  o/ 
complaint. 


LIFE   OP  DR.   ARNOLD.  105 

stinctively  regarded  as  a  living  spring  of  action,  and  a 
source  of  solemn  responsibility,  than  amongst  those 
who  were  called  to  continue  their  labors  in  the  sphere 
and  on  the  scene  which  had  been  ennobled  to  them  by 
his  counsels  and  his  presence.* 

But  whatever  interest  attaches  to  the  more  external 
circumstances  of  his  administration,  and  to  his  rela- 
tions with  others,  who  were  concerned,  it  is  of  course 
centred  in  his  own  personal  government  of  the  boys. 
The  natural  effect  of  his  concentration  of  interest  on 
what  he  used  to  call  "  our  great  self,"  the  school,  was 
that  the  separate  existence  of  the  school  was  in  return 

*  His  views  will  perhaps  be  best  explained  by  the  two  following  let- 
ters :  — 

LETTER  OF  INQUIRY  FOR  A  MASTER. 

What  I  want  is  a  man  who  is  a  Christian  and  a  gentleman,  an 

active  man,  and  one  who  has  common  sense  and  understands  boys.  I  do 
not  so  much  care  about  scholarship,  as  he  will  have  immediately  under 
him  the  lowest  forms  of  the  school ;  but  yet,  on  second  thoughts,  Ido  care 
about  it  very  much,  because  his  pupils  may  be  in  the  highest  forms  ;  and 
besides,  I  think  that  even  the  elements  are  best  taught  by  a  man  who  has 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  matter.  However,  if  one  must  give  way,  J 
prefer  activity  of  mind  and  an  interest  in  his  work  to  high  scholarship : 
for  the  one  may  be  acquired  far  more  easily  than  the  other.  I  should  wish 
it  also  to  be  understood,  that  the  new  master  may  be  called  upon  to  take 
boarders  in  his  house,  it  being  my  intention  for  the  future  to  require  this 
of  all  masters  as  I  see  occasion,  that  so  in  time  the  boarding-houses  may 

die  a  natural  death With  this  to  offer,  I  think  I  have  a  right  to 

look  rather  high  for  the  man  whom  I  fix  upon,  and  it  is  my  great  object 
to  get  here  a  society  of  intelligent,  gentlemanly,  and  active  men,  who 
may  permanently  keep  up  the  character  of  the  school,  and  make  it  "  vile 
damnuin,"  if  I  were  to  break  my  neck  to-morrow 

LETTER  TO  A  MASTER  ON  HIS  APPOINTMENT. 

The  qualifications  which  I  deem  essential  to  the  due  perform- 
ance of  a  master's  duties  here,  may  in  brief  be  expressed  as  the  spirit  of 
a  Christian  and  a  gentleman, — that  a  man  should  enter  upon  his  business 
not  £K  Trapepyov,  but  as  a  substantive  and  most  important  duty ;  that  he 
should  devote  himself  to  it  as  the  especial  branch  of  the  ministerial  call- 
ing which  he  has  chosen  to  follow  —  that  belonging  to  the  great  public 
institution,  and  standing  in  a  public  and  conspicuous  situation,  he  should 
study  things  "  lovely  and  of  good  report; "  that  is,  that  he  should  be  pub- 
lic-spirited, liberal,  and  entering  heartily  into  the  interest,  honor,  and 
general  respectability  and  distinction  of  the  society  which  he  has  joined ; 
and  that  he  should  have  sufficient  vigor  of  mind  and  thirst  for  knowledge, 
to  persist  in  adding  to  his  own  stores  without  neglecting  the  full  improve- 
ment of  those  whom  he  is  teaching.  1  think  our  masterships  here  offer 
a  noble  field  of  duty,  and  I  would  not  bestow  them  on  any  one  whom  I 
thought  would  undertake  them  without  entering  into  the  spirit  of  our 
.system  heart  and  hand. 


106  LIFE   OP  DR.    ARNOLD. 

almost  merged  in  him.  This  was  not  indeed  his  own 
intention,  but  it  was  precisely  because  he  thought  so 
much  of  the  institution  and  so  little  of  himself,  that,  in 
spite  of  his  efforts  to  make  it  work  independently  of 
any  personal  influence  of  his  own,  it  became  so  thor- 
oughly dependent  upon  him,  and  so  thoroughly  pene- 
trated with  his  spirit.  From  one  end  of  it  to  the  other, 
whatever  defects  it  had  were  his  defects,  whatever  ex- 
cellences it  had  were  his  excellences.  It  was  not  the 
master  who  was  beloved  or  disliked  for  the  sake  of  the 
school,  but  the  school  was  beloved  or  disliked  for  the 
sake  of  the  master.  Whatever  peculiarity  of  character 
was  impressed  on  the  scholars  whom  it  sent  forth,  was 
derived  not  from  the  genius  of  the  place,  but  from  the 
genius  of  the  man.  Throughout,  whether  in  the 
school  itself,  or  in  its  after  effects,  the  one  image  that 
we  have  before  us  is  not  Rugby,  but  ARNOLD. 

What  was  his  great  object  has  already  appeared  from 
his  letters ;  namely,  the  hope  of  making  the  school  a 
place  of  really  Christian  education.  These  words  in 
his  mouth  meant  something  very  different  from  the 
general  professions  which  every  good  teacher  must  be 
supposed  to  make,  and  which  no  teacher  even  in  the 
worst  times  of  English  education  could  have  openly 
ventured  to  disclaim ;  but  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  so 
to  explain  them,  as  that  they  shall  not  seem  to  exceed 
or  fall  short  of  the  truth.  It  was  not  an  attempt 
merely  to  give  more  theological  instruction,  or  to  in- 
troduce sacred  words  into  school  admonitions ;  there 
may  have  been  some  occasions  for  religious  advice  that 
might  have  been  turned  to  more  advantage,  some 
religious  practices  which  might  have  been  more  con- 
stantly or  effectually  encouraged.  His  design  arose 
out  of  the  very  nature  of  his  office  :  the  relation  of  an 
instructor  to  his  pupils  was  to  him,  like  all  the  other 
relations  of  human  life,  only  in  a  healthy  state,  when 
subordinate  to  their  common  relation  to  God.  The 
idea  of  a  Christian  school,  again,  was  to  him  the  natu- 
ral result,  so  to  speak,  of  the  very  idea  of  a  school  in 


LIFE   OF  DR.    ARNOLD.  107 

itself ;  exactly  as  the  idea  of  a  Christian  state  seemed 
to  him  to  be  involved  in  the  very  idea  of  a  state  itself. 
The  intellectual  training  was  not  for  a  moment  under- 
rated, and  the  machinery  of  the  school  was  left  to  have 
its  own  way.  But  he  looked  upon  the  whole  as  bear- 
ing on  the  advancement  of  the  one  end  of  all  instruction 
and  education  ;  the  boys  were  still  treated  as  school- 
boys, but  as  schoolboys  who  must  grow  up  to  be  Chris- 
tian men ;  whose  age  did  not  prevent  their  faults  from 
being  sins,  or  their  excellences  from  being  noble  and 
Christian  virtues ;  whose  situation  did  not  of  itself 
make  the  application  of  Christian  principles  to  their 
daily  lives  an  impracticable  vision. 

His  education,  in  short,  it  was  once  observed  amidst 
the  vehement  outcry  by  which  he  used  to  be  assailed, 
"was  not  (according  to  the  popular  phrase)  based 
upon  religion,  but  was  itself  religious"  It  was  this 
chiefly  which  gave  a  oneness  to  his  work  amidst  a 
great  variety  of  means  and  occupations,  and  a  steadi- 
ness to  the  general  system  amidst  its  almost  unceasing 
change.  It  was  this  which  makes  it  difficult  to  sepa- 
rate one  part  of  his  work  from  another,  and  which  often 
made  it  impossible  for  his  pupils  to  say  in  after  life,  of 
much  that  had  influenced  them,  whether  they  had 
derived  it  from  what  was  spoken  in  school,  in  the 
pulpit,  or  in  private.  And,  therefore,  when  either  in 
direct  religious  teaching,  or  on  particular  occasions, 
Christian  principles  were  expressly  introduced  by  him, 
they  had  not  the  appearance  of  a  rhetorical  flourish  or 
of  a  temporary  appeal  to  the  feelings ;  they  were 
looked  upon  as  the  natural  expression  of  what  was 
constantly  implied :  it  was  felt  that  he  had  the  power, 
in  which  so  many  teachers  have  been  deficient,  of  say- 
ing what  he  did  mean,  and  of  not  paying  what  he  did 
not  mean,  —  the  power  of  doing  what  was  right,  and 
speaking  what  was  true,  and  thinking  what  was  good, 
independently  of  any  professional  or  conventional 
notions  that  so  to  act,  speak,  or  think,  was  becoming 
or  expedient. 


108  LIFE   OP   DR.    ARNOLD. 

It  was  not  merely  an  abstract  school,  but  an  English 
public  school,  which  he  looked  upon  as  the  sphere  in 
which  this  was  to  be  effected.  There  was  something 
to  him  at  the  very  outset  full  of  interest  in  a  great 
place  of  national  education,  such  as  he  considered  a 
public  school  to  be. 

"  There  is,"  he  said,  "  or  there  ought  to  be,  something  very 
ennobling  in  being  connected  with  an  establishment  at  once 
ancient  and  magnificent,  where  all  about  us,  and  all  the  asso- 
ciations belonging  to  the  objects  around  us,  should  be  great, 
splendid  and  elevating.  What  an  individual  ought  and  often 
does  derive  from  the  feeling  that  he  is  born  of  an  old  and 
illustrious  race,  from  being  familiar  from  his  childhood  with 
the  walls  and  trees  which  speak  of  the  past  no  less  than  of 
the  present,  and  make  both  full  of  images  of  greatness ;  this, 
in  an  inferior  degree,  belongs  to  every  member  of  an  ancient 
and  celebrated  place  of  education.  In  this  respect  every  one 
of  us  has  a  responsibility  imposed  upon  him,  which  I  wish 
that  we  more  considered."  *  (Serm.  vol.  iii.  p.  210.) 

This  feeling  of  itself  dictated  the  preservation  of  the 
old  school  constitution  as  far  as  it  was  possible,  and  he 
was  very  careful  not  to  break  through  any  customs 
which  connected  the  institution,  however  slightly,  with 


*It  was  one  of  his  most  cherished  wishes  at  Rugby,  to  be  enabled  to  leave 
to  the  school  some  permanent  rank  or  dignity,  which  should  in  some  meas- 
ure compensate  for  its  total  barrenness  of  all  historical  associations,  which 
he  always  felt  painfully  in  contrast  with  his  own  early  school,  Winches- 
ter. Thus,  amongst  other  schemes,  he  exerted  himself  to  procure  a  medal 
or  gome  similar  favor  from  the  crown.  "  I  can  truly  say,"  he  wrote  in 
1840,  ' '  that  nothing  which  could  have  been  given  me  in  the  way  of  pre- 
ferment, would  have  been  so  gratifying  tome  as  to  have  been  the  means 
in  any  degree  of  obtaining  what  I  think  would  be  not  more  an  honor  than 
a  real  and  lasting  benefit  to  the  school."  The  general  grounds  on  which 
he  thought  this  desirable,  may  best  be  stated  in  his  own  words:  "  I  think 
that  it  would  be  well,  on  public  grounds,  to  confer  what  may  be  consid- 
ered as  analogous  to  a  peerage  conferred  on  some  of  the  wealthiest  corn- 
oners,  or  to  a  silk  gown  bestowed  on  distinguished  lawyers;  that  is,  that 
when  schools  had  risen  from  a  very  humble  origin  to  a  considerable  place 
in  the  country,  and  had  continued  so  for  sometime,  some  royal  gift,  now- 
ever  small,  should  be  bostowed  upon  them,  merely  as  a  sort  of  recognition, 
or  confirmation,  on  the  part  of  the  Crown,  of  the  courtesy  rank  whicL 
they  had  acquired  already.  I  have  always  believed  that  one  of  the  sim- 
plest and  most  effectual  means  of  improving  the  foundation  schools 
throughout  the  country  would  be  to  hold  out  the  hope  of  some  mark  oi 
encouragement  from  the  Crown,  as  they  might  happen  to  deserve  it. 


LIFE   OF   DR.    ARNOLD.  109 

the  past.  But  in  this  constitution  there  were  pecu- 
liarities of  far  greater  importance  in  his  eyes,  for  good 
or  evil,  than  any  mere  imaginative  associations ;  the 
peculiarities  which  distinguish  the  English  public 
school  system  from  almost  every  other  system  of  edu- 
cation in  Europe,  and  which  are  all  founded  on  the 
fact  that  a  large  number  of  boys  are  left  for  a  large 
portion  of  their  time  to  form  an  independent  society 
of  their  own,  in  which  the  influence  that  they  exercise 
over  each  other  is  far  greater  than  can  possibly  be 
exercised  by  the  masters,  even  if  multiplied  greatly 
beyond  their  present  number. 

How  keenly  he  felt  the  evils  resulting  from  this  sys- 
tem, and  the  difficulty  of  communicating  to  it  a  really 
Christian  character,  will  be  evident  to  any  one  who 
knows  the  twelfth  Sermon  in  his  second  volume,  in 
which  he  unfolded,  at  the  beginning  of  his  career,  the 
causes  which  had  led  good  men  to  declare  that  "  pub- 
lic schools  are  the  seats  and  nurseries  of  vice ;  "  or  the 
three  sermons  on  "Christian  Schools,"  in  his  fifth 
volume,  in  which,  with  the  added  experience  of  ten 
years,  he  analyzed  the  six  evils  by  which  he  "  sup- 
posed that  great  schools  were  likely  to  be  corrupted, 
and  to  be  changed  from  the  likeness  of  God's  temple  to 
that  of  a  den  of  thieves."  (Vol.  v.  p.  74.) 

Sometimes  he  would  be  led  to  doubt  whether  it  were 
really  compatible  with  the  highest  principles  of  educa- 
tion ;  sometimes  he  would  seem  to  have  an  earnest 
and  almost  impatient  desire  to  free  himself  from  it. 
Still,  on  the  whole,  it  was  always  on  a  reformation, 
not  on  an  overthrow,  of  the  existing  constitution  of 
the  school  that  he  endeavored  to  act.  "Another 
system,"  he  said,  "  may  be  better  in  itself,  but  I  am 
placed  in  this  system,  and  am  bound  to  try  what  I  can 
make  of  it." 

With  his  usual  and  undoubting  confidence  in  what 
ne  believed  to  be  a  general  law  of  Providence,  he  based 
his  whole  management  of  the  school  on  his  early- 
formed  and  yearly-increasing  conviction  that  what  he 

VOL.  I.  10 


110  LIFE  OP  DR.   ARNOLD. 

had  to  look  for,  both  intellectually  and  morally,  was 
not  performance  but  promise ;  that  the  very  freedom 
and  independence  of  school  life,  which  in  itself  he 
thought  so  dangerous,  might  be  made  the  best  prepa- 
ration for  Christian  manhood ;  and  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  apply  to  his  scholars  the  principle  which  seemed  to 
him  to  have  been  adopted  in  the  training  of  the  child- 
hood of  the  human  race  itself.*  He  shrunk  from 
pressing  on  the  conscience  of  boys  rules  of  action 
which  he  felt  they  were  not  yet  able  to  bear,  and  from 
enforcing  actions  which,  though  right  in  themselves, 
would  in  boys  be  performed  from  wrong  motives. 
Keenly  as  he  felt  the  risk  and  fatal  consequences  of 
the  failure  of  this  trial,  still  it  was  his  great,  sometimes 
his  only  support  to  believe  that  "the  character  is 
braced  amid  such  scenes  to  a  greater  beauty  and  firm- 
ness than  it  ever  can  attain  without  enduring  and  wit- 
nessing them.  Our  work  here  would  be  absolutely 
unendurable  if  we  do  not  bear  in  mind  that  we  should 
look  forward  as  well  as  backward — if  we  did  not 
remember  that  the  victory  of  fallen  man  lies  not  in 
innocence  but  in  tried  virtue."  (Serm.  vol.  iv.  p.  7.) 
"I  hold  fast,"  said  he,  "to  the  great  truth,  that 
4  blessed  is  he  that  overcometh ; ' "  and  he  writes  in 
1837:  "Of  all  the  painful  things  connected  with 
my  employment,  nothing  is  equal  to  the  grief  of  seeing 
a  boy  come  to  school  innocent  and  promising,  and 
tracing  the  corruption  of  his  character  from  the  influ- 
ence of  the  temptations  around  him,  in  the  very  place 
which  ought  to  have  strengthened  and  improved  it. 
But  in  most  cases  those  who  come  with  a  character  of 
positive  good  are  benefited ;  it  is  the  neutral  and  inde- 
cisive characters  which  are  apt  to  be  decided  for  evil 
by  schools,  as  they  would  be  in  fact  by  any  other 
temptation." 

But  this  very  feeling  led  him  with  the  greater  eager- 
ness to  catch  at  every  means  by  which  the  trial  might 

*  Sermons,  yol.  ii.  p.  440. 


LIFE   OP  DR.    ARNOLD.  Ill 

be  shortened  or  alleviated.  "  Can  the  change  from 
childhood  to  manhood  be  hastened,  without  prema- 
turely exhausting  the  faculties  of  body  or  mind?" 
(Serm.  vol.  iv.  p.  19)  was  one  of  the  chief  questions 
on  which  his  mind  was  constantly  at  work,  and  which 
in  the  judgment  of  some  he  was  disposed  to  answer 
too  readily  in  the  affirmative.  It  was  with  the  elder 
boys,  of  course,  that  he  chiefly  acted  on  this  principle, 
but  with  all  above  the  very  young  ones  he  trusted  to 
it  more  or  less.  Firmly  as  he  believed  that  a  time  of 
trial  was  inevitable,  he  believed  no  less  firmly  that  it 
might  be  passed  at  public  schools  sooner  than  under 
other  circumstances  ;  and,  in  proportion  as  he  disliked 
the  assumption  of  a  false  manliness  in  boys,  was  his 
desire  to  cultivate  in  them  true  manliness,  as  the  only 
step  to  something  higher,  and  to  dwell  on  earnest 
principle  and  moral  thoughtfulness,  as  the  great  and 
distinguishing  mark  between  good  and  evil.*  Hence 
his  wish  that  as  much  as  possible  should  be  done  by 
the  boys,  and  nothing  for  them ;  hence  arose  his  prac- 
tice, in  which  his  own  delicacy  of  feeling  and  upright- 
ness of  purpose  powerfully  assisted  him,  of  treating  the 
boys  as  gentlemen  and  reasonable  beings,  of  making 
them  respect  themselves  by  the  mere  respect  he  showed 
to  them ;  of  showing  that  he  appealed  and  trusted  to 
their  own  common  sense  and  conscience.  Lying,  for 
example,  to  the  masters,  he  made  a  great  moral 
offence :  placing  implicit  confidence  in  a  boy's  asser- 
tion, and  then,  if  a  falsehood  was  discovered,  punish- 
ing it  severely,  — in  the  upper  part  of  the  school,  when 
persisted  in,  with  expulsion.  Even  with  the  lower 
forms  he  never  seemed  to  be  on  the  watch  for  boys ; 
and  in  the  higher  forms  any  attempt  at  further  proof 
of  an  assertion  was  immediatety  checked:  "If  you 
say  so,  that  is  quite  enough  —  of  course  I  believe  your 
word ; "  and  there  grew  up  in  consequence  a  general 
feeling  that  "it  was  a  shame  to  tell  Arnold  a  He — he 
always  believes  one." 

*  See  Sermons,  vol.  iv.  p.  99. 


112  LIFE   OP  DR.   ARNOLD. 

Perhaps  the  liveliest  representation  of  this  general 
spirit,  as  distinguished  from  its  exemplification  in  par- 
ticular parts  of  the  discipline  and  instruction,  would  be 
formed  by  recalling  his  manner,  as  he  appeared  in  the 
great  school,  where  the  boys  used  to  meet  when  the 
whole  school  was  assembled  collectively,  and  not  in  its 
different  forms  or  classes.  Then,  whether  on  his  usual 
entrance  every  morning  to  prayers  before  the  first  les- 
son, or  on  the  more  special  emergencies  which  might 
require  his  presence,  he  seemed  to  stand  before  them, 
not  merely  as  the  head-master,  but  as  the  representa- 
tive of  the  school.  There  he  spoke  to  them  as  mem- 
bers together  with  himself  of  the  same  great  institu- 
tion, whose  character  and  reputation  they  had  to  sus- 
tain as  well  as  he.  He  would  dwell  on  the  satisfaction 
he  had  in  being  head  of  a  society,  where  noble  and 
honorable  feelings  were  encouraged,  or  on  the  disgrace 
which  he  felt  in  hearing  of  acts  of  disorder  or  violence, 
such  as  in  the  humbler  ranks  of  life  would  render 
them  amenable  to  the  law  of  their  country  ;  or^  again, 
on  the  trust  which  he  placed  in  their  honor  as  gentle- 
men, and  the  baseness  of  any  instance  in  which  it  was 
abused.  "  Is  this  a  Christian  school  ?  "  he  indignantly 
asked  at  the  end  of  one  of  those  addresses,  in  which  he 
had  spoken  of  an  extensive  display  of  bad  feeling 
amongst  the  boys ;  and  then  added,  —  "I  cannot  re- 
main here  if  all  is  to  be  carried  on  by  constraint  and 
force ;  if  I  am  to  be  here  as  a  jailer,  I  will  resign  my 
office  at  once."  And  few  scenes  can  be  recorded  more 
characteristic  of  him  than  on  one  of  these  occasions, 
when,  in  consequence  of  a  disturbance,  he  had  been 
obliged  to  send  away  several  boys,  and  when  in  the 
midst  of  the  general  spirit  of  discontent  which  this  ex- 
cited, he  stood  in  his  place  before  the  assembled  school, 
and  said,  "It  is  not  necessary  that  this  should  be  a 
school  of  three  hundred,  or  one  hundred,  or  of  fifty 
boys ;  but  it  is  necessary  that  it  should  be  a  school  of 
Christian  gentlemen." 

The  means  of  carrying  out  these  principles  were  of 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  113 

course  various ;  they  may,  however,  for  the  sake  of 
convenience,  be  viewed  under  the  divisions  of  the  gen- 
eral discipline  of  the  school,  the  system  of  instruction, 
the  chapel  services,  and  his  own  personal  intercourse 
and  influence. 

I.  In  considering  his  general  management  of  the 
discipline  of  the  school,  it  will  only  be  possible  to 
touch  on  its  leading  features. 

1.  He  at  once  made  a  great  alteration  in  the  whole 
system  of  punishments  in  the  higher  part  of  the  school, 
"  keeping  it  as  much  as  possible  in  the  background,  and 
by  kindness  and  encouragement  attracting  the  good 
and  noble  feelings  of  those  with  whom  he  had  to  deal."* 
As  this  appears  more  distinctly  elsewhere,  it  is  needless 
to  enlarge  upon  it  here ;  but  a  few  words  may  be  neces- 
sary to  explain  the  view  with  which,  for  the  younger 
part  of  the  school,  he  made  a  point  of  maintaining,  to 
a  certain  extent,  the  old  discipline  of  public  schools. 

"  The  beau  ideal  of  school  discipline  with  regard  to  young 
boys  would  seem  to  be  this,  that,  whilst  corporal  punishment 
was  retained  on  principle  as  fitly  answering  to  and  marking 
the  naturally  inferior  state  of  boyhood,  and  therefore  as  con- 
veying no  peculiar  degradation  to  persons  in  such  a  state,  we 
should  cherish  and  encourage  to  the  utmost  all  attempts  made 
by  the  several  boys,  as  individuals,  to  escape  from  the  natural 
punishment  of  their  age  by  rising  above  its  naturally  low  tone 
of  principle." 

Flogging,  therefore,  for  the  younger  part  he  re- 
tained, but  it  was  confined  to  moral  offences,  such  as 
lying,  drinking,  and  habitual  idleness,  while  his  aver- 
sion to  inflicting  it  rendered  it  still  less  frequent  in 
practice  than  it  would  have  been  according  to  the  rule 
he  had  laid  down  for  it.  But  in  answer  to  the  argu- 
ment used  in  a  liberal  journal,  that  it  was  even  for 
these  offences  and  for  this  age  degrading,  he  replied 
with  characteristic  emphasis  — 

*  Serin,  vol.  iv.  p.  106.  The  whole  sermon  is  a  full  exposition  of  his  view. 
10*  H 


114  LIFE   OP  DR.    ARNOLD. 

"  I  know  well  of  what  feeling  this  is  the  expression ;  it 
originates  in  that  proud  notion  of  personal  independence 
which  is  neither  reasonable  nor  Christian  —  but  essentially 
barbarism. '  It  visited  Europe  with  all  the  curses  of  the  age 
of  chivalry,  and  is  threatening  us  now  with  those  of  Jacobin- 
ism  At  an  age  when  it  is  almost  impossible  to  h'nd  a 

true  manly  sense  of  the  degradation  of  guilt  or  faults,  where 
is  the  wisdom  of  encouraging  a  fantastic  sense  of  the  degra- 
dation of  personal  correction  ?  What  can  be  more  false,  or 
more  adverse  to  the  simplicity,  sobriety,  ?nd  humbleness  of 
mind,  which  are  the  best  ornament  of  youth,  and  the  best 
promise  of  a  noble  manhood  ?  "* 

2.  But  his  object  was  of  course  far  higher  than  to 
check  particular  vices.  "  What  I  want  to  see  in  the 
school,"  he  said,  "  and  what  I  cannot  find,  is  an  abhor- 
rence of  evil :  I  always  think  of  the  psalm,  *  Neither 
doth  he  abhor  anything  that  is  evil.'  '  Amongst  all 
the  causes,  which  in  his  judgment,  contributed  to  the 
absence  of  this  feeling,  and  to  the  moral  childishness, 
which  he  considered  the  great  curse  of  public  schools, 
the  chief  seemed  to  him  to  lie  in  the  spirit  which  was 
there  encouraged  of  combination,  of  companionship, 
of  excessive  deference  to  the  public  opinion  prevalent 
in  the  school.  Peculiarly  repugnant  as  this  spirit  was 
at  once  to  his  own  reference  for  lawful  authority,  and 
to  his  dislike  of  servile  submission  to  unlawful  author- 
ity ;  fatal  as  he  deemed  it  to  all  approach  to  sympathy 
between  himself  and  his  scholars  —  to  all  free  and 
manly  feeling  in  individual  boys  —  to  all  real  and  per- 
manent improvement  of  the  institution  itself — it  gave 
him  more  pain  when  brought  prominently  before  him, 
than  any  other  evil  in  the  school.  At  the  very  sight 
of  a  knot  of  vicious  or  careless  boys  gathered  to- 
gether round  the  great  school-house  fire,  "It  makes 
me  think,"  he  would  say,  "  that  I  see  the  Devil  in  the 
midst  of  them."  From  first  to  last  it  was  the  great 
subject  to  which  all  his  anxiety  converged.  No  half- 
year  ever  passed  without  his  preaching  upon  it  —  he 

*  Miscellaneous  Works,  p.  365. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  115 

turned  it  over  and  over  in  every  possible  point  of  view 
— he  dwelt  on  it  as  the  one  master-fault  of  all.  "If 
the  spirit  of  Elijah  were  to  stand  in  the  midst  of  us, 
and  we  were  to  ask  him,  '  What  shall  we  do  then  ? '  his 
answer  would  be,  w  Fear  not,  nor  heed  one  another's 
voices,  but  fear  and  heed  the  voice  of  God  only.' " 
(MS.  Serm.  on  Luke  iii.  10.  1833.) 

Against  this  evil  he  felt  that  no  efforts  of  good  indi- 
vidual example,  or  of  personal  sympathy  with  individ- 
ual masters,  could  act  effectually,  unless  there  were 
something  to  counteract  it  constantly  amongst  the  boys 
themselves. 

"  He,  therefore,  who  wishes "  (to  use  his  own  words) 
"  really  to  improve  public  education  would  do  well  to  direct 
his  attention  to  this  point,  and  to  consider  how  there  can  be 
infused  in  to  a  society  of  boys  such  elements  as,  without  being 
too  dissimilar  to  coalesce  thoroughly  with  the  rest,  shall  yet 
be  so  superior  as  to  raise  the  character  of  the  whole.  It 
would  be  absurd  to  say  that  any  school  has  as  yet  fully  solved 
this  problem.  I  am  convinced,  however,  that,  in  the  peculiar 
relation  of  the  highest  form  to  the  rest  of  the  boys,  such  as  it 
exists  in  our  great  public  schools,  there  is  to  be  found  the 
best  means  of  answering  it.  This  relation  requires  in  many 
respects  to  be  improved  in  its  character  ;  some  of  its  features 
should  be  softened,  others  elevated  ;  but  here,  and  here  only, 
is  the  engine  which  can  effect  the  end  desired."  (Jouru. 
Ed.  p.  292.) 

In  other  words,  he  determined  to  use,  and  to  im- 
prove to  the  utmost,  the  existing  machinery  of  the 
Sixth  Form,  and  of  fagging ;  understanding  by  the 
Sixth  Form  the  thirty  boys  who  composed  the  highest 
class  —  "  those  who  having  risen  to  the  highest  form 
in  the  school,  will  probably  be  at  once  the  oldest  and 
the  strongest,  and  the  cleverest ;  and  if  the  school  be 
well  ordered,  the  most  respectable  in  application  and 
general  character :  "  and  by  fagging,  "  the  power  given 
by  the  supreme  authorities  of  the  school  to  the  Sixth 
Form,  to  be  exercised  by  them  over  the  lower  boys, 
for  the  sake  of  securing  a  regular  government  amongst 


116  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

the  boys  themselves,  and  avoiding  the  evils  of  anarchy  -, 
in  other  words,  of  the  lawless  tyranny  of  physical 
strength."  (Journ.  Ed.  p.  287,  286.)* 

In  many  points  he  took  the  institution  as  he  found 
it,  and  as  he  remembered  it  at  Winchester.  The  re- 
sponsibility of  checking  bad  practices  without  the 
intervention  of  the  masters,  the  occasional  settlement 
of  difficult  cases  of  school  government,  the  subjection 
of  brute  force  to  some  kind  of  order,  involved  in  the 
maintenance  of  such  an  authority,  had  been  more  or 
less  produced  under  the  old  system  both  at  Rugby  and 
elsewhere.  But  his  zeal  in  its  defence,  and  his  confi- 
dent reliance  upon  it  as  the  keystone  of  his  whole 
government,  were  eminently  characteristic  of  himself. 
It  was  a  point  moreover  on  which  the  spirit  of  the  age 
set  strongly  and  increasingly  against  him,  on  which 
there  was  a  general  tendency  to  yield  to  the  popular 
outcry,  and  on  which  the  clamor,  that  at  one  time 
assailed  him,  was  ready  to  fasten,  as  a  subject  where 
all  parties  could  concur  in  their  condemnation.  But 
he  was  immovable :  and  though,  on  his  first  coming, 
he  had  felt  himself  called  upon  rather  to  restrain  the 
authority  of  the  Sixth  Form  from  abuses  than  to  guard 
it  from  encroachments,  yet  now  that  the  whole  system 
was  denounced  as  cruel  and  absurd,  he  delighted  to 
stand  forth  as  its  champion.  The  power,  which  was 
most  strongly  condemned,  of  personal  chastisement 
vested  in  Praepostors  over  those  who  resisted  their 
authority,  he  firmly  maintained  as  essential  to  the  gen- 
eral support  of  the  good  order  of  the  place ;  and  there 
was  no  obloquy  which  he  would  not  undergo  in  the 
protection  of  a  boy  who  had  by  due  exercise  of  this 
discipline  made  himself  obnoxious  to  the  school,  the 
parents,  or  the  public. 

*  It  has  not  been  thought  necessary  here  to  enter  at  length  into  his  de- 
fense of  the  general  system  of  fagging,  especially  as  it  may  he  seen  by 
those  who  are  interested  in  the  subject  in  the  article  in  the  ninth  volume 
of  the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Education,  from  which  the  above  extracts 
have  been  taken,  and  which  is  now  inserted  at  length  in  the  volume  of 
his  Miscellaneous  Works. 


LIFE  OF  DK.   ARNOLD.  117 

But  the  importance  which  he  attached  to  it  arose 
from  his  regarding  it  not  only  as  an  efficient  engine  of 
discipline,  but  as  the  chief  means  of  creating  a  respect 
for  moral  and  intellectual  excellence,  and  of  diffusing 
his  own  influence  through  the  mass  of  the  school. 
Whilst  he  made  the  Praepostors  rely  upon  his  support 
in  all  just  use  of  their  authority,  as  well  as  on  his 
severe  judgment  of  all  abuse  of  it,  he  endeavored  also 
to  make  them  feel  that  they  were  actually  fellow-work- 
ers with  him  for  the  highest  good  of  the  school,  upon 
the  highest  principles  and  motives  —  that  they  had, 
with  him,  a  moral  responsibility  and  a  deep  interest  in 
the  real  welfare  of  the  place.  Occasionally  during  his 
whole  stay,  and  regularly  at  the  beginning  or  end  of 
every  half-year  during  his  later  years,  he  used  to  make 
short  addresses  to  them  on  their  duties,  or  on  the  gen- 
eral state  of  the  school,  one  of  which,  as  an  illustra- 
tion of  his  general  mode  of  speaking  and  acting  with 
them,  it  has  been  thought  worth  while  to  give,  as 
nearly  as  his  pupils  could  remember  it,  in  the  very 
words  he  used.  After  making  a  few  remarks  to  them 
on  their  work  in  the  lessons :  "  I  will  now,"  he  pro- 
ceeded, "  say  a  few  words  to  you  as  I  promised.  Speak- 
ing to  you  as  to  young  men  who  can  enter  into  what  I 
say,  I  wish  you  to  feel  that  you  have  another  duty  to 
perform,  holding  the  situation  that  you  do  in  the 
school ;  of  the  importance  of  this  I  wish  you  all  to  feel 
sensible,  and  of  the  enormous  influence  you  possess,  in 
ways  in  which  we  cannot,  for  good  or  for  evil,  on  all 
below  you ;  and  I  wish  you  to  see  fully  how  many  and 
great  are  the  opportunities  offered  to  you  here  of  do- 
ing good  —  good,  too,  of  lasting  benefit  to  yourselves 
as  well  as  to  others ;  there  is  no  place  where  you  will 
find  better  opportunities  for  some  time  to  come,  and 
you  will  then  have  reason  to  look  back  to  your  life 
here  with  the  greatest  pleasure.  You  will  soon  find, 
when  you  change  your  life  here  for  that  at  the  Univer- 
sities, how  very  few  in  comparison  they  are  there, 
however  willing  you  may  then  be, — at  any  rate,  dur- 


118  LIFE   OP  DR.    ARNOLD. 

ing  the  first  part  of  your  life  there.  That  there  is 
good  working  in  the  school  I  most  fully  believe,  and 
we  cannot  feel  too  thankful  for  it ;  in  many  individual 
instances,  in  different  parts  of  the  school,  I  have  seen 
the  change  from  evil  to  good — to  mention  instances 
would  of  course  be  wrong.  The  state  of  the  school  is 
a  subject  of  congratulation  to  us  all,  but  only  so  far  as 
to  encourage  us  to  increased  exertions;  and  I  am  sure 
we  ought  all  to  feel  it  a  subject  of  most  sincere  thank- 
fulness to  God ;  but  we  must  not  stop  here ;  we  must 
exert  ourselves  with  earnest  prayer  to  God  for  its  con- 
tinuance. And  what  I  have  often  said  before  I  repeat 
now :  what  we  must  look  for  here  is,  1st,  religious  and 
moral  principles ;  2dly,  gentlemanly  conduct ;  3dly, 
intellectual  ability." 

Nothing,  accordingly,  so  shook  his  hopes  of  doing 
good  as  weakness  or  misconduct  in  the  Sixth.  "  You 
should  feel,"  he  said,  "like  officers  in  the  army  or 
navy,  whose  want  of  moral  courage  would,  indeed,  be 
thought  cowardice."  "When  I  have  confidence  in 
the  Sixth,"  was  the  end  of  one  of  his  farewell  ad- 
dresses, "there  is  no  post  in  England  which  I  would 
exchange  for  this ;  but  if  they  do  not  support  me,  I 
must  go." 

It  may  well  be  imagined  how  important  this  was  as 
an  instrument  of  education,  independently  of  the 
weight  of  his  own  personal  qualities.  Exactly  at  the 
age  when  boys  begin  to  acquire  some  degree  of  self- 
respect,  and  some  desire  for  the  respect  of  others,  they 
were  treated  with  confidence  by  one  whose  confidence 
they  could  not  but  regard  as  worth  having ;  and  found 
themselves  in  a  station  where  their  own  dignity  could 
not  be  maintained,  except  by  consistent  good  conduct. 
And  exactlyj  at  a  time  when  manly  aspirations  begin  to 
expand,,  they  found  themselves  invested  with  functions 
of  government,  great  beyond  their  age,  yet  naturally 
growing  out  of  their  position ;  whilst  the  ground  of 
solemn  responsibility,  on  which  they  were  constantly 
taught  that  their  authority  rested,  had  a  general, 


LIFE    OF   DR.    ARNOLD.  119 

though  of  course  not  universal,  tendency  to  counteract 
any  notions  of  mere  personal  self-importance. 

"  I  cannot  deny  that  you  have  an  anxious  duty  —  a  duty 
which  some  might  suppose  was  too  heavy  for  your  years. 
But  it  ,j3ems  to  me  the  nobler  as  well  the  truer  ways 
of  stating  the  case  to  say,  that  it  is  the  great  privilege  of  this 
and  other  such  institutions,  to  anticipate  the  common  time  of 
manhood ;  that  by  their  whole  training  they  fit  the  character 
for  manly  duties  at  an  age  when,  under  another  system,  such 
duties  would  be  impracticable  ;  that  there  is  not  imposed  upon 
you  too  heavy  a  burden  but  that  you  ara  capable  of  bearing, 
without  injury,  what  to  others  might  be  a  burden,  and  there- 
fore to  diminish  your  duties  and  lessen  your  responsibility 
would  be  no  kindness,  but  a  degradation  —  an  effront  to  you 
and  to  the  school."  (Serm.  vol.  v.  p.  59.) 

3.  Whilst  he  looked  to  the  Sixth  Form,  as  the  ordi- 
nary corrective  for  the  ordinary  evils  of  a  public  school, 
he  still  felt  that  these  evils  from  time  to  time  developed 
themselves  in  a  shape  which  demanded  peculiar  meth- 
ods to  meet  them,  and  which  may  best  be  explained  by 
one  of  his  letters. 

"  My  own  school  experience  has  taught  me  the  monstrous 
evil  of  a  state  of  low  principle  prevailing  amongst  those  who 
set  the  tone  to  the  rest.  I  can  neither  theoretically  nor  prac- 
tically defend  our  public  school  system,  where  the  boys  are 
left  so  very  much  alone  to  form  a  distinct  society  of  their  own, 
unless  you  assume  that  the  upper  class  shall  be  capable  of 
being  in  a  manner  pec'irai  between  the  masters  and  the  mass 
of  the  boys,  that  is,  shall  be  capable  of  receiving  and  trans- 
mitting to  the  rest,  through  their  example  and  influence,  right 
principles  of  conduct,  instead  of  those  extremely  low  ones 
which  are  natural  to  a  society  of  boys  left  wholly  to  form 
their  own  standard  of  right  and  wrong.  Now,  when  I  get 
any  in  this  part  of  the  school  who  are  not  to  be  influenced  — 
who  have  neither  the  will  nor  the  power  to  influence  others 
—  not  from  being  intentionally  bad,  but  from  very  low  wit, 
and  extreme  childishness  or  coarseness  of  character  —  the 
evil  is  so  great,  not  only  negatively  but  positively,  (for  their 
low  and  false  views  are  greedily  caught  up  by  those  below 
them,)  that  I  know  not  how  to  proceed,  or  how  to  hinder  the 


120  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

school  from  becoming  a  place  of  education  for  evil  rather 
than  for  good,  except  by  getting  rid  of  such  persons.  And 
then  comes  the  difficulty,  that  the  parents  who  see  their  sons 
only  at  home  —  that  is  just  where  the  points  of  character 
which  are  so  injurious  here  are  not  called  into  action — can 
scarcely  be  brought  to  understand  why  they  should  remove 
them ;  and  having,  as  most  people  have,  only  the  most  vague 
ideas  as  to  the  real  nature  of  a  public  school,  they  cannot 
understand  what  harm  they  are  receiving  or  doing  to  others, 
if  they  do  not  get  into  some  palpable  scrape,  which  very 
likely  they  never  would  do.  More  puzzling  still  it  is  when 
you  have  many  boys  of  this  description,  so  that  the  evil  influ- 
ence is  really  very  great,  and  yet  there  in  not  one  of  the  set 
whom  you  would  set  down  as  a  really  bad  fellow  if  taken 
alone ;  but  most  of  them  would  really  do  very  well  if  they 
were  not  together  and  in  a  situation  where,  unluckily,  their 
age  and  size  leads  them,  unavoidably,  to  form  the  laws  and 
guide  the  opinion  of  their  society ;  whereas,  they  are  wholly 
unfit  to  lead  others  and  are  so  slow  at  receiving  good  influ- 
ences themselves,  that  they  want  to  be  almost  exclusively 
with  older  persons,  instead  of  being  principally  with  younger 
ones." 

The  evil  undoubtedly  was  great,  and  the  difficulty, 
which  he  describes  in  the  way  of  its  removal,  tended  to 
aggravate  the  evil.  When  first  he  entered  on  his  post 
at  Rugby  there  was  a  general  feeling  in  the  country, 
that  so  long  as  a  boy  kept  himself  from  offences  suffi- 
ciently enormous  to  justify  expulsion,  he  had  a  kind  of 
right  to  remain  in  a  public  school ;  that  the  worse  and 
more  troublesome  to  parents  were  their  sons,  the  more 
did  a  public  school  seem  the  precise  remedy  for  them ; 
that  the  great  end  in  a  public  school,  in  short,  was  to 
flog  their  vices  out  of  bad  boys.  Hence  much  indig- 
nation was  excited  when  boys  were  sent  away  for  lesser 
offences ;  an  unfailing  supply  of  vicious  sons  was  se- 
cured, and  scrupulous  parents  were  naturally  reluctant 
to  expose  their  boys  to  the  influence  of  such  associates. 

His  own  determination  had  been  fixed  long  before 
he  came  to  Rugby,  and  it  was  only  after  ascertaining 
that  his  power  in  this  respect  would  be  absolute,  that 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  121 

he  consented  to  become  a  candidate  for  the  post.*  The 
retention  of  boys  who  were  clearly  incapable  of  deriv- 
ing good  from  the  system,  or  whose  influence  on  others 
was  decidedly  and  extensively  pernicious,  seemed  to 
him  not  a  necessary  part  of  the  trials  of  school,  but 
an  inexcusable  and  intolerable  aggravation  of  them. 
"  Till  a  man  learns  that  the  first,  second,  and  third 
duty  of  a  schoolmaster  is  to  get  rid  of  unpromising 
subjects,  a  great  public  school,"  he  said,  "  will  never 
be  what  it  might  be,  and  what  it  ought  to  be."  The 
remonstrances  which  he  encountered  both  on  public 
and  private  grounds  were  vehement  and  numerous. 
But  on  these  terms  alone  had  he  taken  his  office ;  and 
he  solemnly  and  repeatedly  declared,  that  on  no  other 
terms  could  he  hold  it,  or  justify  the  existence  of  the 
public  school  system  in  a  Christian  country. 

The  cases  which  fell  under  this  rule  included  all  shades 
of  character  from  the  hopelessly  bad  up  to  the  really 
good,  who  yet  from  their  peculiar  circumstances  might 
be  receiving  great  injury  from  the  system  of  a  public 
school ;  grave  moral  offences  frequently  repeated ;  boys 
banded  together  in  sets  to  the  great  harm  of  individu- 
als or  of  the  school  at  large ;  overgrown  boys,  whose 
age  and  size  gave  them  influence  over  others,  and 
made  them  unfit  subjects  for  corporal  punishment, 
whilst  the  low  place  which,  either  from  idleness  or 
dullness,  they  held  in  the  school,  encouraged  all  the 
childish  and  low  habits  to  which  they  were  naturally 
tempted.f  He  would  retain  boys  after  offences,  which 
considered  in  themselves  would  seem  to  many  almost 
deserving  of  expulsion  ;  he  would  request  the  removal 
of  others  for  offences  which  to  many  would  seem  venial. 
In  short,  he  was  decided  by  the  ultimate  result  on  the 
whole  character  of  the  individual,  or  on  the  general 
state  of  the  school. 


*  See  Letter  to  Dr.  Hawkins,  in  1827. 

t  The  admission  of  very  young  boys,  e.  g.  under  the  age  of  ten,  he  ear- 
nestly depreciated,  as  considering  them  incapable  of  profiting  by  the 
discipline  of  the  place. 

VOL.  i.  11 


122  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

It  was  on  every  account  essential  to  the  carrying 
out  of  his  principles,  that  he  should  mark  in  every  way 
the  broad  distinction  between  this  kind  of  removal,  and 
what  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word  used  to  be  called 
expulsion.  The  latter  was  intended  by  him  as  a  pun- 
ishment and  lasting  disgrace,  was  inflicted  publicly  and 
with  extreme  solemnity,  was  of  very  rare  occurrence, 
and  only  for  gross  and  overt  offences.  But  he  took 
pains  to  show  that  removal,  such  as  is  here  spoken  of, 
whether  temporary  or  final,  was  not  disgraceful  or 
penal,  but  intended  chiefly,  if  not  solely,  for  a  protec- 
tion of  the  boy  himself  or  his  schoolfellows.  Often  it 
would  be  wholly  unknown  who  were  thus  dismissed  or 
why ;  latterly,  he  generally  allowed  such  cases  to  re- 
main till  the  end  of  the  half-year,  that  their  removal 
might  pass  altogether  unnoticed :  the  subjoined  let- 
ters also  to  the  head  of  a  college  and  a  private  tutor, 
introducing  such  boys  to  their  attention,  are  samples 
of  the  spirit  in  which  he  acted  on  these  occasions.* 

This  system  was  not  pursued  without  difficulty ;  the 
inconvenience  attendant  upon  such  removals  was  oc- 
casionally very  great ;  sometimes  the  character  of  the 
boy  may  have  been  mistaken,  the  difficulty  of  explan- 
ing  the  true  nature  of  the  transaction  to  parents  was 

*  1.  To  the  Head  of  a  college.  —  "With  regard  to ,  if  you  had 

asked  me  about  him  half  a  year  ago,  I  should  have  spoken  of  him  in  the 
highest  terms  in  point  of  conduct  and  steady  attention  to  his  work ;  there 
has  been  nothing  at  all  that  has  passed,  beyond  a  great  deal  of  party  and 
echoolboy  feeling,  wrong,  as  I  think,  and  exceedingly  mischievous  to  a 
rchool,  but  from  its  peculiar  character  not  likely  to  recur  at  college  or  in 
after  life,  and  not  reflecting  permanently  on  a  boy's  principles  or  dispo- 

eition.  I  think  you  will  have  in A  steady  and  gentlemanly  man, 

who  will  read  fairly  and  give  no  disturbance,  and  one  who  would  well  re- 
pay AU  v  interest  taken  in  nim  by  his  tutor  to  direct  him  either  in  his  work 
or  conduct.  He  was  one  of  those  who  would  do  a  great  deal  better  at  col- 
lege than  at  school;  and  of  this  sort  there  are  many;  as  long  us  they  are 
among  boys,  and  with  no  closer  personal  intercourse  with  older  persons 
than  a  public  school  affords,  they  are  often  wrong-headed  and  trouble- 
some; but  older  society  and  the  Habits  of  more  advanced  life  set  them  to 
rights  again." 

2 "Their  conduct  till  they  went  away  was  as  good  as  possible, 

and  I  feel  bound  to  gpeak  strongly  in  their  favor  with  regard  to  their 
prospect  at  college;  for  there  was  more  of  foolishness  than  of  vice  in  the 
whole  matter,  and  it  was  their  peculiar  situation  in  the  school,  and  the 
peculiar  danger  of  their  fault  among  us,  that  made  us  wish  them  to  be 
removed. was  very  much  improved  in  his  work,  and  did  some  of 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  123 

considerable ;  an  exaggerated  notion  was  entertained 
of  the  extent  to  which  this  view  was  carried. 

To  administer  such  a  system  required  higher  qual- 
fications  in  a  head-master  than  mere  scholarship  or 
mere  zeal.  What  enabled  him  to  do  so  successfully 
was,  the  force  of  his  character ;  his  determination  to 
carry  out  his  principles  through  a  host  of  particular 
obstacles ;  his  largeness  of  view,  which  endeavored  to 
catch  the  distinctive  features  of  every  case ;  the  con- 
sciousness which  he  felt,  and  made  others  feel,  of  the 
uprightness  and  purity  of  his  intentions.  The  predic- 
tions that  boys  who  failed  at  school  would  turn  out 
well  with  private  tutors,  were  often  acknowledged  to 
be  verified  in  cases  where  the  removal  had  been  most 
complained  of ;  the  diminution  of  corporal  punishment 
in  the  school  was  necessarily  much  facilitated ;  a  salu- 
tary effect  was  produced  on  the  boys  by  impressing 
upon  them,  that  even  slight  offences  which  came 
under  the  head-master's  eye,  were  swelling  the  sum 
of  misconduct  which  might  end  in  removal ;  whilst 
many  parents  were  displeased  by  the  system,  others 
were  induced  to  send  "as  many  boys,"  he  said,  "and 
more  than  he  sent  away;"  lastly,  he  succeeded  in 
shaking  the  old  notion  of  the  conditions  under  which 
boys  must  be  allowed  to  remain  at  school,  and  in 


his  business  very  well :  since  he  left  us  he  has  been  with  a  private  tutor, 
and  I  shall  be  disappointed  if  he  has  not  behaved  there  so  as  to  obtain 
from  him  a  very  favorable  character." 

3 " was  not  a  bad  fellow  at  all,  but  had  overgrown  school 

in  his  body  before  he  had  outgrown  it  in  wit;  he  was  therefore  the  hero 
of  the  younger  boys  for  his  strength  and  prowness ;  and  this  sort  of  dis- 
tinction was  doing  him  harm,  so  that  I  advised  his  father  to  take  him 
away,  and  to  get  him  entered  at  the  University  as  soon  as  possible." 

4.  To  a  private  tutor. — "I  am  glad  that  you  continue  to  like , 

nor  am  I  surprised  at  it,  for  I  always  thought  that  school  brought  out 
the  bad  in  his  character,  and  repressed  the  good.  There  are  some  others 
in  the  same  way  whom  you  would  find,  I  think,  very  satisfactory  pupils, 
but  who  are  not  improving  here." 

C.  "It  is  a  good  thing,  I  have  no  doubt,  that has  left  us;  his  is 

inst  one  of  those  characters  which  cannot  bear  a  public  school,  and  may 
be  saved  and  turned  to  great  good  by  the  humanities  of  private  tuition." 

"Ah!"  he  would  say  of  a  case  of  this  kind,  "If  the  Peninsular  war 
were  going  on  now,  one  would  know  what  to  do  with  him  —  a  few  years' 
hardship  would  bring  a  very  nice  fellow  out  of  him." 


124  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

impressing  on  others  the  standard  of  moral  progress 
which  he  endeavored  himself  to  enforce. 

The  following  letter  to  one  of  the  assistant-masters 
expresses  his  mode  of  meeting  the  attacks  to  which  he 
was  exposed  on  the  two  subjects  last  mentioned. 

"  I  do  not  choose  to  discuss  the  thickness  of  Praepostors' 
sticks,  or  the  greater  or  less  blackness  of  a  boy's  bruises,  for 
the  amusement  of  all  the  readers  of  the  newspapers ;  nor 
do  I  care  in  the  slighest  degree  about  the  attacks,  if  the 
masters  themselves  treat  them  with  indifference.  If  they 
appear  to  mind  them,  or  to  fear  their  effect  on  the  school, 
the  apprehension  in  this,  as  in  many  other  instances,  will  be 
likely  to  verify  itself.  For  my  own  part,  I  confess  that  I  will 
not  condescend  to  justify  the  school  against  attacks,  when  I 
believe  that  it  is  going  on  not  only  not  ill,  but  positively 
well.  Were  it  really  otherwise,  I  think  I  should  be  as  sensi- 
tive as  any  one,  and  very  soon  give  up  the  concern.  But 
these  attacks  are  merely  what  I  bargained  for,  so  far  as  they 
relate  to  my  conduct  in  the  school,  because  they  are  directed 
against  points  on  which  my  '  ideas '  were  fixed  before  I  came 
to  Rugby,  and  are  only  more  fixed  now  ;  e.  g.  that  the  author- 
ity of  the  Sixth  Form  is  essential  to  the  good  of  the  school, 
and  is  to  be  upheld  through  all  obstacles  from  within  and 
from  without,  and  that  sending  away  boys  is  a  necessary  and 
regular  part  of  a  good  system,  not  as  a  punishment  to  one, 
but  as  a  protection  to  others.  Undoubtedly  it  would  be  a 
better  system  if  there  was  no  evil ;  but  evil  being  unavoidable 
we  are  not  a  jail  to  keep  it  in,  but  a  place  of  education  where 
we  must  cast  it  out,  to  prevent  its  taint  from  spreading. 
Meanwhile  let  us  mind  our  own  work,  and  try  to  perfect  the 
execution  of  our  own  '  ideas,'  and  we  shall  have  enough  to 
do,  and  enough  always  to  hinder  us  from  being  satisfied  with 
ourselves  ;  but  when  we  are  attacked  we  have  some  right  to 
answer  with  Scipio,  who,  scorning  to  reply  to  a  charge  of 
corruption,  said,  '  Hoc  die  cum  Hannibale  bene  et  feliciter 
pugnavi : '  —  we  have  done  enough  good  and  undone  enough 
evU,  to  allow  us  to  hold  our  assailants  cheap." 

II.  The  spirit  in  which  he  entered  on  the  instruc- 
tion of  the  school,  constituting  as  it  did  the  main 
business  of  the  place,  may  perhaps  best  be  understood 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  125 

from  a  particular  exemplification  of  it  in  the  circum- 
stances under  which  he  introduced  a  prayer  before 
the  first  lesson  in  the  Sixth  Form,  over  and  above  the 
general  prayers  read  before  the  whole  school.  On 
the  morning  on  which  he  first  used  it  he  said  that  he 
had  been  much  troubled  to  find  that  the  change  from 
attendance  on  the  death-bed  of  one  of  the  boys  in  his 
house  to  his  school-work  had  been  very  great:  he 
thought  that  there  ought  not  to  be  such  a  contrast, 
and  that  it  was  probably  owing  to  the  school-work  not 
being  sufficiently  sanctified  to  God's  glory ;  that  if  it 
was  made  really  a  religious  work,  the  transition  to  it 
from  a  death-bed  to  it  would  be  slight :  he  therefore  in- 
tended for  the  future  to  offer  a  prayer  before  the  first 
lesson,  that  the  day's  work  might  be  undertaken  and 
carried  on  solely  to  the  glory  of  God  and  their  im- 
provement, —  that  he  might  be  the  better  enabled  to 
do  his  work.* 

Under  this  feeling  all  the  lessons,  in  his  eyes,  and 
not  only  those  which  were  more  distinctly  religious, 
were  invested  with  a  moral  character ;  and  his  desire 
to  raise  the  general  standard  of  knowledge  and  appli- 
cation in  the  school  was  as  great,  as  if  it  had  been  his 
sole  object. 

He  introduced,  with  this  view,  a  variety  of  new  reg- 
ulations ;  contributed  liberally  himself  to  the  founda- 
tion of  prizes  and  scholarships,  as  incentives  to  study, 
and  gave  up  much  of  his  leisure  to  the  extra  labor 
of  new  examinations  for  the  various  forms,  and  of  a 
yearly  examination  for  the  whole  school.  The  spirit 
of  industry  which  his  method  excited  in  his  better 
scholars,  and  more  or  less  in  the  school  at  large,  was 
considerable  ;  and  it  was  often  complained  that  their 
minds  and  constitutions  were  over-worked  by  prema- 
ture exertion.  Whether  this  was  the  case  more  at 
Rugby  than  in  other  schools,  since  the  greater  exer- 
tions generally  required  in  all  parts  of  education,  it  is 


*  See  Appendix  A. 
11* 


126  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

difficult  to  determine.  He  himself  would  never  allow 
the  truth  of  it,  though  maintaining  that  it  would  be  a 
very  great  evil  if  it  were  so.  The  Greek  union  of  the 

iiperri  yvfivaarm^   With    the    «P"^  fwvoiKt),    he    thought    inval- 

uable  in  education,  and  he  held  that  the  freedom  of 
the  sports  of  public  schools  was  particularly  favorable 
to  it ;  and  whenever  he  saw  that  boys  were  reading 
too  much,  he  always  remonstrated  with  them,  relaxed 
their  work,  and  if  they  were  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
school,  would  invite  them  to  his  house  in  the  half-year 
or  the  holidays  to  refresh  them. 

He  had  a  strong  belief  in  the  general  union  of  moral 
and  intellectual  excellence.  "  I  have  now  had  some 
years'  experience,"  he  once  said  in  preaching  at  Rug- 
by, "  I  have  known  but  too  many  of  those  who  in 
their  utter  folly  have  said  in  their  heart,  there  was 
no  God ;  but  the  sad  sight  —  for  assuredly  none  can 
be  more  sad — of  a  powerful,  an  earnest,  and  an  in- 
quiring mind  seeking  truth,  yet  not  finding  it  —  the 
horrible  sight  of  good  deliberately  rejected,  and  evil 
deliberately  chosen  —  the  grievous  wreck  of  earthly 
wisdom  united  with  spiritual  folly  —  I  believe  that  it 
has  been,  that  it  is,  that  it  may  be  —  Scripture  speaks 
of  it ;  the  experience  of  others  has  witnessed  it ;  but  I 
thank  God  that  in  my  own  experience  I  have  never 
witnessed  it  yet ;  I  have  still  found  that  folly  and 
thoughtlessness  have  gone  to  evil ;  that  thought  and 
manliness  have  been  united  with  faith  and  goodness." 
And  in  the  case  of  boys  his  experience  led  him,  to  use 
his  words  in  a  letter  to  a  friend,  "  more  and  more  to 
believe  in  this  connection,  for  which  divers  reasons 
may  be  given.  One,  and  a  very  important  one,  is, 
that  ability  puts  a  boy  in  sympathy  with  his  teachers 
in  the  matter  of  his  work,  and  in  their  delight  in  the 
works,  of  great  minds ;  whereas  a  dull  boy  has  much 
more  sympathy  with  the  uneducated,  and  others  to 
whom  animal  enjoyments  are  all  in  all."  "I  am 
sure,"  he  used  to  say,  "that  in  the  case  of  boys  the 
temptations  of  intellect  are  not  comparable  to  the 


LIFE   OF   DR.    ARNOLD.  127 

temptations  of  dulness ;"  and  he  often  dwelt  on  "the 
fruit  which  he  above  all  things  longed  for,  —  moral 
thoughtfulness,  —  the  inquiring  love  of  truth  going 
along  with  the  devoted  love  of  goodness." 

But  for  mere  cleverness,  whether  in  boys  or  men,  he 
had  no  regard.  "Mere  intellectual  acuteness,"  he 
used  to  say,  in  speaking  (for  example)  of  lawyers, 
"  divested  as  it  is,  in  too  many  cases,  of  all  that  is 
comprehensive  and  great  and  good,  is  to  me  more 
revolting  than  the  most  helpless  imbecility,  seeming  to 
be  almost  like  the  spirit  of  Mephistopheles."  Often 
when  seen  in  union  with  moral  depravity,  he  would  be 
inclined  to  deny  its  existence  altogether ;  the  genera- 
tion of  his  scholars,  to  which  he  looked  back  with  the 
greatest  pleasure,  was  not  that  which  contained  most 
instances  of  individual  talent,  but  that  which  had  alto- 
gether worked  steadily  and  industriously.  The  uni- 
versity honors  which  his  pupils  obtained  were  very 
considerable,  and  at  one  time  unrivalled  by  any  school 
in  England,  and  he  was  unfeignedly  delighted  when- 
ever they  occurred.  But  he  never  laid  any  stress  upon 
them,  and  strongly  deprecated  any  system  which  would 
encourage  the  notion  of  their  being  the  chief  end  to 
be  answered  by  school  education.  He  would  often 
dwell  on  the  curious  alternations  of  cleverness  or  dul- 
ness in  school  generations,  which  seemed  to  baffle  all 
human  calculation  or  exertion.  "  What  we  ought  to 
do  is  to  send  up  boys  who  will  not  be  plucked."  A 
mere  plodding  boy  was  above  all  others  encouraged  by 
him.  At  Laleham  he  had  once  got  out  of  patience, 
and  spoken  sharply  to  a  pupil  of  this  kind,  when  the 
pupil  looked  up  in  his  face  and  said,  "  Why  do  you 
speak  angrily,  sir  ?  —  indeed  I  am  doing  the  best  that 
I  can."  Years  afterward  he  used  to  tell  the  story  to 
his  children,  and  said,  "  I  never  felt  so  much  ashamed 
in  my  life — that  look  and  that  speech  I  have  never 
forgotten."  And  though  it  would  of  course  happen 
that  clever  boys,  from  a  great  sympathy  with  his  un- 
derstanding, would  be  brought  into  closer  intercourse 


128  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

with  him,  this  did  not  affect  his  feeling,  not  only  of 
respect,  but  of  reverence  to  those  who,  without  ability, 
were  distinguished  for  high  principle  and  industry. 
"  If  there  be  one  thing  on  earth  which  is  truly  admi- 
rable, it  is  to  see  God's  wisdom  blessing  an  inferiority 
of  natural  powers,  where  they  have  been  honestly, 
truly,  and  zealously  cultivated."  In  speaking  of  a 
pupil  of  this  character,  he  once  said,  "  I  would  stand 
to  that  man  hat  in  hand;  "  and  it  was  his  feeling  after 
the  departure  of  such  an  one  that  drew  from  him  the 
most  personal,  perhaps  the  only  personal  praise  which 
he  ever  bestowed  on  any  boy  in  his  sermons.*  (See 
Sermons,  vol.  iii.  pp.  352,  353.) 

This  being  his  general  view,  it  remains  to  unfold  his 
ideas  of  school-instruction  in  detail. 


*  The  subjoined  letters  will  best  show  the  feeling  with  which  he  re- 
garded the  academical  successes  or  failures  of  his  pupils :  — 

1.  To  a  pupii  who  had  failed  in  his  examination  at  the  University:  — 
I  hardly  know  whether  you  would  like  my  writing  to  you ;  yet 

I  feel  strongly  disposed  so  far  to  presume  on  the  old  relation  which  existed 
between  us,  as  to  express  my  earnest  hope  that  you  will  not  attach  too 
much  importance  to  your  disappointment  whatever  it  may  have  been,  at 
the  recent  examination.  I  believe  that  I  attach  quite  as  much  value  as  is 
reasonable  to  university  distinctions ;  but  it  would  be  a  grievous  evil  if  the 
good  of  a  man's  reading  for  three  years  were  all  to  depend  on  the  result  of 
a  single  examination,  affected  as  that  result  must  ever  in  some  degree  be 
by  causes  independent  of  a  man's  intellectual  excellence.  I  am  saying 
nothing  but  what  you  know  quite  well  already :  still,  the  momentary  feel- 
ing of  disappointment  may  tempt  a  man  to'do  himself  great  injustice, 
and  to  think  that  his  efforts  have  been  attended  bv  no  proportionate 
fruit.  I  can  only  say,  for  one,  that  as  far  as  the  real  nonor  for  Rugby  is 
concerned,  it  is  the  effort,  an  hundred  times  more  than  the  issii3  of  the 
effort,  that  is  in  my  judgment  a  credit  to  the  school ;  inasmuch  as 
it  shows  that  the  men  who  go  from  here  to  the  University  do  their 
duty  there;  and  that  is  the  real  point,  which  alone  to  my  mind  reflects 
honor  either  on  individuals  or  on  societies;  and  if  such  a  fruit  i*  in  any 
way  traceable  to  the  influence  of  Rugby,  then  I  am  proud  and  thank- 
ful to  have  had  such  a  man  as  my  pupil"  I  am  almost  afraid  that  you 
will  think  me  impertinent  in  writing  to  you ;  but  I  must  be  allowed  to  feel 
more  than  a  passing  interest  in  those  whom  I  have  known  and  valued  here ; 
and  in  your  case  this  interest  was  renewed  by  having  had  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  you  in  Westmoreland  more  lately.  I  should  DC  extremely  glad  if 
you  can  find  an  opportunity  of  paying  us  a  visit  ere  long  at  Rugby." 

2.  To  a  pupil  just  before  his  examination  at  Oxford  :  — 

"I  have  no  otner  object  in  writing  to  you  than  merely  to  assure  you  of 
my  hearty  interest  about  you  at  this  time  when  I  suppose  that  the  pros- 
pect of  your  examination  is  rising  up  closely  before  you.  Yet  I  hope  that 
you  know  me  better  than  to  think  that  my  interest  arises  merely  from  the 
credit  which  the  school  may  gain  from  your  success,  or  that  I  should  be 
in  a  manner  personally  disappointed  if  our  men  were  not  to  gain  what 


LIFE   OF   DR.    ARNOLD.  129 

1.  That  classical  studies  should  be  the  basis  of  intel- 
lectual teaching,  he  maintained  from  the  first.  "  The 
study  of  language,"  he  said,  "seems  to  me  as  if  it 
was  given  for  the  very  purpose  of  forming  the  human 
mind  in  youth  and  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages, 
in  themselves  so  perfect,  and  at  the  same  time  freed 
from  the  insuperable  difficulty  which  must  attend  any 
attempt  to  teach  boys  philology  through  the  medium 
of  their  own  spoken  language,  seem  the  very  instru- 
ments, by  which  this  is  to  be  effected."  But  a  com- 
parison of  his  earlier  and  later  letters  will  show  how 
much  this  opinion  was  strengthened  in  later  years,  and 
how,  in  some  respects,  he  returned  to  parts  of  the  old 
system,  which  on  his  first  arrival  at  Rugby  he  had 
altered  or  discarded.  To  the  use  of  Latin  verse,  which 
he  had  been  accustomed  to  regard  as  "  one  of  the  most 
contemptible  prettinesses  of  the  understanding,"  "I 
am  becoming,"  he  said,  "in  my  old  age  more  and 
more  a  convert."  Greek  and  Latin  grammars  in  Eng- 
lish, which  he  introduced  soon  after  he  came,  he  found 


they  are  trying  for.  On  this  score  I  am  very  hard,  and  I  know  too  well 
the  uncertainties  of  examination  to  be  much  surprised  at  any  result.  I 
am  much  more  anxious,  however,  that  you  should  not  overwork  yourself, 
nor  unnerve  your  mind  for  after  exertion.  Ani  I  wish  to  say  that  if  you 
would  like  change  of  air  or  scene  for  a  single  day,  I  should  urge  you  to 
come  down  here,  and  if  I  can  be  of  any  use  to  you,  when  here,  in  exam- 
ining you,  that  you  may  not  think  that  you  would  be  utterly  losing  your 
time  in  leaving  Oxford,  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  do  it.  I  am  a  great  believer 
in  the  virtues  of  a  journey  for  fifty  miles,  for  giving  tone  to  the  system 
where  it  has  been  overworked." 

3.  To  a  ptioil  who  had  been  unsuccessful  in  an  examination  for  the 
Ireland  scholarship :  — 

"  I  am  more  than  satisfied  with  what  you  have  done  in  the  Ireland ; 
as  to  getting  it,  I  certainly  never  should  have  got  it  myself,  so  I  have  no 
right  to  be  surprised  that  my  pupils  do  not." 

4.  To  a  pupil  who  had  gained  a  first  class  at  Oxford: — • 

"Your  letter  has  given  all  your  friends  here  great  joy,  and  most  heart- 
ily do  I  congratulate  you  upon  It.  Depend  upon  it,  it  is  a  gift  of  God  not 
to  be  gloried  in,  but  deeply  and  thankfully  to  be  prized,  for  it  may  be  made 
to  minister  to  His  glory  and  to  the  good  of  His  Church,  which  never  more 
needed  the  aid  of  the  Spirit  of  wisdom,  as  well  as  of  the  Spirit  of  love. " 

5.  To  another,  on  the  same :  — 

"I  must  write  you  in  one  line  my  heartiest  congratulations,  for  I 
should  not  like  not  to  write  on  an  occasion  which  I  verily  believe  is  to  no 
one  more  welcome  than  it  is  to  me.  You,  I  know,  will  look  onwards  and 
upwards  — and  will  feel  that  God's  gifts  and  blessings  bind  us  more 
tlosely  to  his  service." 


130  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

were  attended  with  a  disadvantage,  because  the  rules 
which  in  Latin  fixed  themselves  in  the  boys'  memories, 
when  learned  in  English,  were  forgotten.  The  changes 
in  his  views  resulted  on  the  whole  from  his  increasing 
conviction,  that  "  it  was  not  knowledge,  but  the  means 
of  gaining  knowledge,  which  he  had  to  teach ; "  as 
well  as  by  increasing  sense  of  the  value  of  ancient 
authors,  as  belonging  really  to  a  period  of  modern  civ- 
ilization like  our  own :  the  feeling  that  in  them,  "  with 
a  perfect  abstraction  from  those  particular  names  and 
associations,  which  are  forever  biasing  our  judgment 
in  modern  and  domestic  instances,  the  great  prin- 
ciples of  all  political  questions,  whether  civil  or  ec- 
clesiastical, are  perfectly  discussed  and  illustrated  with 
entire  freedom,  with  most  attractive  eloquence,  and 
with  profoundest  wisdom."  (Serm.  vol  iii.  Perf. 
p.  13.) 

From  time  to  time,  therefore,  as  in  the  journal  of 
Education,  (vol.  iii.  p.  240,)  where  his  reasons  are 
stated  at  length,*  he  raised  his  voice  against  the  popu- 
lar outcry,  by  which  classical  instruction  was  at  that 
time  assailed.  And  it  was,  perhaps,  not  without  a 
share  in  producing  the  subsequent  reaction  in  its 
favor,  that  the  one  Head-master,  who,  from  his  politi- 
cal connections  and  opinions,  would  have  been  sup- 
posed most  likely  to  yield  to  the  clamor,  was  the  one 
who  made  the  most  deliberate  and  decided  protest 
against  it. 

2.  But  what  was  true  of  his  union  of  new  with  old 
elements  in  the  moral  government  of  the  school,  applies 
no  less  to  its  intellectual  management.  He  was  the 
first  Englishman  who  drew  attention  in  our  public 
schools  to  the  historical,  political,  and  philosophical 
value  of  philology  and  of  the  ancient  writers,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  mere  verbal  criticism  and  elegant 
scholarship  of  the  last  century.  And  besides  the  gen- 


*  This  Essay  also  is  inserted  in  the  volume  of  his  Miscellaneous  Works, 
p.  848. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  131 

eral  impulse  which  he  gave  to  miscellaneous  reading, 
both  in  the  regular  examinations  and  by  encouraging 
the  tastes  of  particular  boys  for  geology  or  other  like 
pursuits,  he  incorporated  the  study  of  Modern  History, 
Modern  Languages,  and  Mathematics  into  the  work  of 
the  school,  which  attempt,  as  it  was  the  first  of  its 
kind,  so  it  was  at  one  time  the  chief  topic  of  blame 
and  praise  in  his  system  of  instruction.  The  reading 
of  a  considerable  portion  of  modern  history  was  ef- 
fected without  difficulty ;  but  the  endeavor  to  teach 
mathematics  and  modern  languages,  especially  the  lat- 
ter, not  as  an  optional  appendage,  but  as  a  regular 
part  of  the  school  business,  was  beset  with  obstacles, 
which  rendered  his  plan  less  successful  than  he  had 
anticipated ;  though  his  wishes,  especially  for  boys  who 
were  unable  to  reap  the  full  advantage  of  classical 
studies,  were,  to  a  great  extent,  answered.* 


*  The  instruction  in  modern  languages  passed  through  various  stages, 
of  which  the  final  result  was  that  the  several  forms  were  taught  by  their 
regular  masters,  French  and  German  in  the  three  higher  forms,  and 
French  in  the  forms  below.  How  fully  he  was  himself  awake  to  the  ob- 
jections to  this  plan  will  appear  from  the  subjoined  letter  in  1840;  but  still 
he  felt  that  it  yet  remained  to  be  shown  how,  for  a  continuance,  all  the 
boys  of  a  large  public  school  can  be  taught  modern  languages,  except  by 
English  masters,  and  those  the  masters  of  their  respective  classical  forms. 

Extract  from  a  Letter  to  the  Earl  of  Denbigh,  Chairman  of  the  Trus- 
tees of  the  School :  — 

"  I  assume  it  certainly,  as  the  foundation  of  all  my  view  of  the  case,  • 
that  boys  at  a  public  school  never  will  learn  to  speak  or  pronounce  French 
well  under  any  circumstances.  But  to  most  of  our  boys,  to  read  it  will  be 
of  far  more  use  than  to  speak  it;  and  if  they  learn  it  grammatically  as 
a  dead  language,  I  am  sure  that  whenever  they  have  any  occasion  to 
speak  it,  as  in  going  abroad,  for  instance,  they  will  be  able"  to  do  it  very 
rapidly.  I  think  that  if  we  can  enable  the  boys  to  read  French  with  facil- 
ity, and  to  know  the  Grammar  well,  we  shall  do  as  much  as  can  be  done 
at  a  public  school,  and  should  teach  the  boys  something  valuable.  And, 
in  point  of  fact,  I  have  heard  men,  who  have  left  Rugby,  speak  with  grat- 
itude of  what  they  had  learnt  with  us  in  French  and  German. 

"  It  is  very  true  that  our  general  practice  here,  as  in  other  matters,  does 
not  come  up  to  our  theory;  and  I  know  too  well  that  most  of  the  boys 
would  pass  a  very  poor  examination  even  in  French  Grammar.  But  so 
it  is  with  their  mathematics;  and  so  it  will  be  with  any  branch  of  knowl- 
edge that  is  taught  but  seldom,  and  is  felt  to  be  quite  subordinate  to  the 
boy's  main  study.  Omy  I  am  quite  sure  that  if  the  boy's  regular  mas- 
ters fail  in  this,  a  foreigner,  be  he  who  he  may,  would  fail  much  more. 

"  I  do  not  therefore  see  any  way  out  of  the  difficulties  of  the  question, 
and  I  believe  sincerely  that  our  present  plan  is  the  least  bad,  I  will  not 
say  the  best,  that  can  be  adopted  ;  discipline  is  not  injured  as  it  is  with 


132  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

What  has  been  said,  relates  rather  to  his  system  of 
instruction,  than  to  the  instruction  itself.  His  per- 
sonal share  in  the  teaching  of  the  younger  boys  was 
confined  to  the  general  examinations,  in  which  he  took 
an  active  part,  and  to  two  lessons  which  he  devoted  in 
every  week  to  the  hearing  in  succession  every  form  in 
the  school.  These  visits  were  too  transient  for  the 
boys  to  become  familiar  with  him ;  but  great  interest 
was  always  excited,  and  though  the  chief  impression 
was  of  extreme  fear,  they  were  also  struck  by  the  way 
in  which  his  examinations  elicited  from  them  whatever 
they  knew,  as  well  as  by  the  instruction  which  they 
received  merely  from  hearing  his  questions,  or  from 
seeing  the  effect  produced  upon  him  by  their  answers. 
But  the  chief  source  of  his  intellectual  as  of  his  moral 
influence  over  the  school,  was  through  the  Sixth  Form. 
To  the  rest  of  the  bo}^s  he  appeared  almost  exclusively 
as  a  master,  to  them  he  appeared  almost  exclusively  as 
an  instructor.  The  library  tower,  which  stands  over 
the  great  gateway  of  the  school-buildings,  and  in  which 
he  heard  the  lessons  of  his  own  form,  is  the  place  to 
which  his  pupils  will  revert  as  the  scene  of  their  first 
real  acquaintance  with  his  powers  of  teaching,  and 
with  himself. 

It  has  been  attempted  hitherto  to  represent  his 
principles  of  education  as  distinct  from  himself ;  but 
in  proportion  as  we  approach  his  individual  teaching, 
this  becomes  impracticable,  —  the  system  is  lost  in  the 
man, — the  recollections  of  the  Head-master  of  Rugby 
are  inseparable  from  the  recollections  of  the  personal 
guide  and  friend  of  his  scholars.  They  will  at  once 
recall  those  little  traits,  which,  however  minute  in 
themselves,  will  to  them  suggest  a  lively  image  of  his 
whole  manner.  They  will  remember  the  glance,  with 


foreign  masters,  and  I  think  that  something  is  taught,  though  but  little 
With  regard  to  German,  I  can  speak  more  confidently ;  and  I  am  sure  than 
there  we  do  facilitate  a  boy's  after  study  of  the  language  considerably, 
and  enable  him,  with  much  less  trouble,  to  read  those  many  German 
books,  which  are  so  essential  to  his  classical  studies  at  the  University." 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 


133 


which  he  looked  round  in  the  few  moments  of  silence 
before  the  lesson  began,  and  which  seemed  to  speak 
his  sense  of  his  own  position  and  of  theirs  also,  as  the 
heads  of  a  great  school ;  the  attitude  in  which  he  stood, 
turning  over  the  pages  of  Facciolati's  Lexicon,  or  Pole's 
Synopsis,  with  his  eye  fixed  upon  the  boy  who  was 
pausing  to  give  an  answer  ;  the  well-known  changes  of 
his  voice  and  manner,  so  faithfully  representing  the 
feeling  within.  They  will  recollect  the  pleased  look 
and  the  cheerful  "  Thank  you,"  which  followed  upon 
a  successful  answer  or  translation  ;  the  fall  of  his  coun- 
tenance with  its  deepening  severity,  the  stern  elevation 
of  the  eyebrows,  the  sudden  "  Sit  down  "  which  fol- 
lowed upon  the  reverse ;  the  courtesy  and  almost  def- 
erence to  the  boys,  as  to  his  equals  in  society,  so  long 
as  there  was  nothing  to  disturb  the  friendliness  of  their 
relation  ;  the  startling  earnestness  with  which  he  would 
check  in  a  moment  the  slightest  approach  to  levity  or 
impertinence  ;  the  confidence  with  which  he  addressed 
them  in  his  half-yearly  exhortations ;  the  expressions ^ 
of  delight  with  which,  when  they  had  been  doing  well, 
he  would  say  that  it  was  a  constant  pleasure  to  him  to 
come  into  the  library. 

His  whole  method  was  founded  on  the  principle  of 
awakening  the  intellect  of  every  individual  boy.  Hence 
it  was  his  practice  to  teach  by  questioning.  As  a  gen- 
eral rule,  he  never  gave  information,  except  as  a  kind 
of  reward  for  an  answer,  and  often  withheld  it  alto- 
gether, or  checked  himself  in  the  very  act  of  uttering 
it,  from  a  sense  that  those  whom  he  was  addressing 
had  not  sufficient  interest  or  sympathy  to  entitle  them 
to  receive  it.  His  explanations  were  as  short  as  possi- 
ble —  enough  to  dispose  of  the  difficulty  and  no  more ; 
and  his  questions  were  of  a  kind  to  call  the  attention 
of  the  boys  to  the  real  point  of  every  subject,  and  to 
disclose  to  them  the  exact  boundaries  of  what  they 
knew  or  did  not  know.  With  regard  to  younger  boys, 
he  said,  "  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  think  that  they  should 
understand  all  they  learn ;  for  God  has  ordered  that  in 

VOL.    I.  12 


134  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

youth  the  memory  should  act  vigorously,  independent 
of  the  understanding  —  whereas  a  man  cannot  usually 
recollect  a  thing  unless  he  understands  it."  But  in 
proportion  to  their  advance  in  the  school  he  tried  to 
cultivate  in  them  a  habit  not  only  of  collecting  facts, 
but  of  expressing  themselves  with  facility,  and  of  un- 
derstanding the  principles  on  which  their  facts  rested. 
"  You  come  here,"  he  said,  "  not  to  read,  but  to  learn 
how  to  read  ;  "  and  thus  the  greater  part  of  his  in- 
structions were  interwoven  with  the  process  of  their 
own  minds  ;  there  was  a  continual  reference  to  their 
thoughts,  an  acknowledgment  that,  so  far  as  their  in- 
formation and  power  of  reasoning  could  take  them, 
they  ought  to  have  an  opinion  of  their  own.  He  was 
evidently  working  not  for,  but  with  the  form,  as  if  they 
were  equally  interested  with  himself  in  making  out  the 
meaning  of  the  passage  before  them.  His  object  was 
to  set  them  right,  not  by  correcting  them  at  once,  but 
either  by  gradually  helping  them  on  to  a  true  answer, 
or  by  making  the  answers  of  the  more  advanced  part  of 
the  form  serve  as  a  medium,  through  which  his  instruc- 
tions might  be  communicated  to  the  less  advanced. 
Such  a  system  he  thought  valuable  alike  to  both  classes 
of  boys.  To  those  who  by  natural  quickness  or  greater 
experience  of  his  teaching  were  more  able  to  follow  his 
instructions,  it  confirmed  the  sense  of  the  responsible 
position  which  they  held  in  the  school,  intellectually 
as  well  as  morally.  To  a  boy  less  ready  or  less  accus- 
tomed to  it,  it  gave  precisely  what  he  conceived  that 
such  a  character  required.  "  He  wants  this,"  to  use 
his  own  words,  "  and  he  wants  it  daily  —  not  only  to 
interest  and  excite  him,  but  to  dispel  what  is  very  apt 
to  grow  around  a  lonely  reader  not  constantly  ques- 
tioned —  a  haze  of  indistinctness  as  to  a  consciousness 
of  his  own  knowledge  or  ignorance  ;  he  takes  a  vague 
impression  for  a  definite  one,  an  imperfect  notion  for 
one  that  is  full  and  complete,  and  in  this  way  he  is 
continually  deceiving  himself." 

Hence,  also,  he  not  only  laid  great  stress  on  original 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  135 

vjompositions,  but  endeavored  so  to  choose  the  subjects 
or  exercises  as  to  oblige  them  to  read  and  lead  them 
to  think  for  themselves.  He  dealt  at  once  a  death- 
blow to  themes  (as  he  expressed  it)  on  "  Virtus  est 
bona  res,"  and  gave  instead  historical  or  geographical 
descriptions,  imaginary  speeches  or  letters,  etymologi- 
cal accounts  of  words,  or  criticisms  of  books,  or  put 
religious  and  moral  subjects  in  such  a  form  as  awak- 
ened a  new  and  real  interest  in  them  ;  *  as,  for  exam- 
ple, not  simply  "  carpe  diem,"  or  "  procrastination  is 
the  thief  of  time  ; "  but  "  carpere  diem  jubent  Epicu- 
rei,  jubet  hoc  idem  Christus."  So,  again,  in  selecting 
passages  for  translation  from  English  into  Greek  or 
Latin,  Instead  of  taking  them  at  random  from  the 
Spectator  or  other  such  works,  he  made  a  point  of 
giving  extracts,  remarkable  in  themselves,  from  such 
English  and  foreign  authors  as  he  most  admired,  so  as 
indelibly  to  impress  on  the  minds  of  his  pupils  some 
of  the  most  striking  names  and  passages  in  modern 
literature.  "  Ha,  very  good !  "  was  his  well-known 
exclamation  of  pleasure  when  he  met  with  some  origi- 
nal thought ;  "  is  that  entirely  your  own,  or  do  you 
remember  anything  in  your  reading  that  suggested  it 
to  you  ?  "  Style,  knowledge,  correctness  or  incorrect-  \ 
ness  of  statement  or  expression,  he  always  disregarded 
in  comparison  with  indication  or  promise  of  real  ; 
thought.  "  I  call  that  the  best  theme,"  he  said,  j 
•"  which  shows  that  the  boy  has  read  and  thought  for 
himself;  that  the  next  best  which  shows  that  he  has 
read  several  books,  and  digested  what  he  has  read  ; 
and  that  the  worst  which  shows  that  he  has  followed 
but  one  book,  and  followed  that  without  reflection." 

The  interest  in  their  work  which  this  method  excited 
in  the  boys  was  considerably  enhanced  by  the  respect 
which,  even  without  regard  to  his  general  character, 
was  inspired  by  the  qualities  brought  out  prominently 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  lessons.  They  were  con- 

*  See  Appendix  B. 


136  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

scious  of  (what  was  indeed  implied  in  his  method 
itself)  the  absence  of  display,  which  made  it  clear  that 
what  he  said  was  to  instruct  them,  not  to  exhibit  his 
own  powers  ;  they  could  not  but  be  struck  by  his  never 
concealing  difficulties  and  always  confessing  ignorance  ; 
acknowledging  mistakes  in  his  edition  of  Thucydides, 
and  on  Latin  verses,  mathematics,  or  foreign  languages, 
appealing  for  help  or  information  to  boys  whom  he 
thought  better  qualified  than  himselfc  to  give  it.  Even 
as  an  example,  it  was  not  without  its  use  to  witness 
daily  the  power  of  combination  and  concentration  on 
his  favorite  subjects  which  had  marked  him  even  from 
a  boy,  and  which  especially  appeared  in  his  illustrations 
of  ancient  by  modern,  and  modern  by  ancient  history. 
The  wide  discursiveness  with  which  he  brought  the 
several  parts  of  their  work  to  bear  on  each  other  ;  the 
readiness  with  which  he  referred  them  to  the  sources 
and  authorities  of  information,  when  himself  ignorant 
of  it ;  the  eagerness  with  which  he  tracked  them  out 
when  unknown  —  taught  them  how  wide  the  field  of 
knowledge  really  was.  In  poetry  it  was  almost  impos- 
sible not  to  catch  something  of  the  delight  and  almost 
fervor  with  which,  as  he  came  to  any  striking  pasrage, 
he  would  hang  over  it,  reading  it  over  and  over  again, 
and  dwelling  upon  it  for  the  mere  pleasure  which  every 
word  seemed  to  give  him.  .In  history  or  philosophy, 
events,  sayings,  and  authors,  would,  from  the  mere 
fact  that  he  had  quoted  them,  become  fixed  in  the 
memory  of  his  pupils,  and  give  birth  to  thoughts  and 
inquiries  long  afterwards,  which,  had  they  been  derived 
through  another  medium,  would  have  been  forgotten 
or  remained  unfruitful.  The  very  scantiness  with 
which  he'  occasionally  dealt  out  his  knowledge,  when 
not  satisfied  that  the  boys  could  enter  into  it,  whilst 
it  often  provoked  a  half-angry  feeling  of  disappoint- 
ment in  those  who  eagerly  treasured  up  all  that  he 
uttered,  left  an  impression  that  the  source  from  which 
they  drew  was  unexhausted  and  unfathoined,  and  to 
all  that  he  did  say  gave  a  double  value. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  137 

Intellectually,  as  well  as  morally,  he  felt  that  the 
teacher  ought  himself  to  be  perpetually  learning,  and 
so  constantly  above  the  level  of  his  scholars.  "  I  am  J 
sure,"  he  said,  speaking  of  his  pupils  at  Laleham,  ; 
"  that  I  do  not  judge  of  them  or  expect  of  them,  as  I  j 
should,  if  I  were  not  taking  pains  to  improve  my  own 
mind."  For  this  reason  he  maintained  that  no  school- 
master ought  to  remain  at  his  post  much  more  than 
fourteen  or  fifteen  years,  lest,  by  that  tune,  he  should 
have  fallen  behind  the  scholarship  of  the  age  ;  and  by 
his  own  reading  and  literary  works  he  endeavored  con- 
stantly to  act  upon  this  principle  himself.  "  For  nine- 
teen out  of  twenty  boys,"  he  said  once  to  Archbishop 
Whately,  in  speaking  of  the  importance  not  only  of 
information,  but  real  ability  in  assistant-masters,  (and 
his  remark  of  course  applied  still  more  to  the  station 
which  he  occupied  himself,)  "ordinary  men  may  be 
quite  sufficient ;  but  the  twentieth,  the  boy  of  real  tal- 
ents, who  is  more  important  than  the  others,  is  liable 
to  suffer  injury  from  not  being  early  placed  under  the 
training  of  one  whom  he  can,  on  close  inspection,  look 
up  to  as  his  superior  in  something  besides  mere  knowl- 
edge. The  dangers,"  he  observed,  "  were  of  various 
kinds.  One  boy  may  acquire  a  contempt  for  the  in- 
formation itself,  which  he  sees  possessed  by  a  man 
whom  he  feels  nevertheless  to  be  far  below  him.  An- 
other will  fancy  himself  as  much  above  nearly  all  the 
world  as  he  feels  he  is  above  his  own  tutor,  and  will 
become  self-sufficient  and  scornful.  A  third  will  be- 
lieve it  to  be  his  duty,  as  a  point  of  humility,  to  bring 
himself  down  intellectually  to  a  level  with  one  whom 
he  feels  bound  to  reverence  ;  and  thus  there  have  been 
instances  where  the  veneration  of  a  young  man  of 
ability  for  a  teacher  of  small  powers  has  been  like  a 
millstone  round  the  neck  of  an  eagle." 

His  practical  talent  as  a  scholar  consisted  in  his  in- 
sight into  the  general  structure  of  sentences  and  the 
general  principles  of  language,  and  in  his  determina- 
tion to  discard  all  those  unmeaning  phrases  and  forms 

12* 


138  LIFE  OF  DB.  ARNOLD. 

of  expression,  by  which  so  many  writers  of  the  last 
generation  and  boys  of  all  generations  endeavor  to 
conceal  their  ignorance.  In  Greek  and  Latin  compo- 
sition his  exceeding  indifference  to  mere  excellence  of 
style,  when  unattended  by  anything  better,  made  it 
difficult  for  him  to  bestow  that  praise,  which  was  neces- 
sary to  its  due  encouragement,  as  a  part  of  the  school 
work,  and  he  never  was  able  to  overcome  the  defi- 
ciency which  he  always  felt  in  composing  or  correcting 
verse  exercises,  even  after  his  increased  conviction  of 
their  use  as  a  mental  discipline.  But  to  prose  compo- 
sition in  both  languages  he  had  from  the  first  attached 
considerable  importance,  not  only  as  the  best  means  of 
acquiring  a  sound  knowledge  of  the  ancient  authors, 
but  of  attaining  a  mastery  over  the  English  language 
also,  by  the  readiness  and  accuracy  of  expression  which 
it  imparted.  He  retained  too  himself  that  happy  facil- 
ity for  imitating  the  style  of  the  Greek  historians  and 
philosophers  for  which  he  was  remarkable  in  youth, 
whilst  his  Latin  prose  was  peculiar  for  combining  the 
force  of  common  Latinity  with  the  vigor  and  simplicity 
of  his  own  style  —  perfectly  correct  and  idiomatic,  yet 
not  the  language  of  Cicero  or  Livy,  but  of  himself. 

In  the  common  lessons,  his  scholarship  was  chiefly 
displayed  in  his  power  of  extempore  translation  into 
English.  This  he  had  possessed  in  a  remarkable  de- 
gree from  the  time  that  he  was  a  boy  at  Winchester, 
where  the  practice  of  reading  the  whole  passage  from 
Greek  or  Latin  into  good  English,  without  construing 
each  particular  sentence  word  by  word,  had  been  much 
encouraged  by  Dr.  Gabell,  and  in  his  youthful  vaca- 
tions during  his  Oxford  course  he  used  to  enliven  the 
sick-bed  of  his  sister  Susannah  by  the  readiness  with 
which  in  the  evenings  he  would  sit  by  her  side,  and 
translate  book  after  book  of  the  history  of  Herodotus. 
So  essential  did  he  consider  this  method  to  a  sound 
study  of  the  classics,  that  he  published  an  elaborate 
defence  of  it  in  the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Education, 
and,  when  delivering  his  Modern  History  lectures  at 


LIFE    OF   DR    ARNOLD.  139 

Oxford,  where  he  much  lamented  the  prevalence  of  the 
opposite  system,  he  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of 
protesting  against  it,  with  110  other  excuse  for  intro- 
ducing the  subject,  than  the  mention  of  the  Latin  style 
of  the  middle-age  historians.  In  itself,  he  looked  upon 
it  as  the  only  means  of  really  entering  into  the  spirit 
of  the  ancient  authors ;  and,  requiring  as  he  did  be- 
sides that  the  translation  should  be  made  into  idio- 
matic English,  and,  if  possible,  into  that  style  of  English 
which  most  corresponded  to  the  period  or  the  subject 
of  the  Greek  or  Latin  writer  in  question,  he  considered 
it  further  as  an  excellent  exercise  in  the  principles  of 
taste  and  in  the  knowledge  and  use  of  the  English  lan- 
guage, no  less  than  of  those  of  Greece  and  Rome.  No 
one  must  suppose  that  these  translations  in  the  least 
resembled  the  paraphrases  in  his  notes  to  Thucydides, 
which  are  avowedly  not  translations,  but  explanations  ; 
he  was  constantly  on  the  watch  for  any  inadequacy  or 
redundancy  of  expression,  —  the  version  was  to  repre- 
sent, and  no  more  than  represent,  the  exact  words  of 
the  original ;  and  those  who,  either  as  his  colleagues 
or  his  pupils,  were  present  at  his  lessons  or  examina- 
tions, well  know  the  acciiracy  with  which  every  shade 
of  meaning  would  be  reproduced  in  a  different  shape, 
and  the  rapidity  with  which  he  would  pounce  on  any 
mistake  of  grammar  or  construction,  however  dexter- 
ously concealed  in  the  folds  of  a  free  translation. 

In  the  subject  of  the  lessons  it  was  not  only  the  lan- 
guage, but  the  author  and  the  age  which  rose  before 
him  ;  it  was  not  merely  a  lesson  to  be  got  through  and 
explained,  but  a  work  which  was  to  be  understood,  to 
be  condemned  or  to  be  admired.  It  was  an  old  opinion 
of  his,  which,  though  much  modified,  was  never  alto- 
gether abandoned,  that  the  mass  of  boys  had  not  a 
sufficient  appreciation  of  poetry,  to  make  it  worth 
while  for  them  to  read  so  much  of  the  ancient  poets,  in 
proportion  to  prose  writers,  as  was  usual  when  he  came 
to  Rugby.  But  for  some  of  them  he  had  besides  a  per- 
sonal distaste.  The  Greek  tragedians,  though  reading 


140  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

them  constantly,  and  portions  of  them  with  the  liveliest 
admiration,  he  thought  on  the  whole  greatly  overrated ; 
and  still  more,  the  second-rate  Latin  poets,  but  whom 
he  seldom  used  ;  and  some,  such  as  Tibullus  and  Pro- 
pcrtius,  never.  "  I  do  really  think,"  he  said,  speaking 
of  these  last  as  late  as  1842,  "  that  any  examiners  in- 
cur a  serious  responsibility  who  require  or  encourage 
the  reading  of  these  books  for  scholarships  ;  of  all  use- 
less reading,  surely  the  reading  of  indifferent  poets  is 
most  useless."  And  to  some  of  them  he  had  a  yet 
deeper  feeling  of  aversion.  It  was  not  till  1835  that 
he  himself  read  the  plays  of  Aristophanes,  and  though 
he  was  then  much  struck  with  the  "  Clouds,"  and 
ultimately  introduced  the  partial  use  of  his  Comedies 
in  the  school,  yet  his  strong  moral  disapprobation  al- 
ways interfered  with  his  sense  of  the  genius  both  of 
that  poet  and  Juvenal. 

But  of  the  classical  lessons  generally  his  enjoyment 
was  complete.  When  asked  once  whether  he  did  not 
find  the  repetition  of  the  same  lessons  irksome  to  him, 
li  Xo,"  he  said,  "  there  is  a  constant  freshness  in  them : 
I  find  something  new  in  them  every  time  that  I  go 
over  them."  The  best  proof  of  the  pleasure  which  he 
took  in  them  is  the  distinct  impression  which  his  schol- 
ars retained  of  the  feeling,  often  rather  implied  than 
expressed,  with  which  he  entered  into  the  several 
works  ;  the  enthusiasm  with  which,  both  in  the  public 
and  private  orations  of  Demosthenes,  he  would  con- 
template piece  by  piece  "  the  luminous  clearness  "  of 
the  sentences  ;  the  affectionate  familiarity  which  he 
used  to  show  towards  Thucydides,  knowing  as  he  did 
the  substance  of  every  single  chapter  by  itself;  the 
revival  of  youthful  interest  with  which  he  would  recur 
to  portions  of  the  works  of  Aristotle  ;  the  keen  sense 
of  a  new  world  opening  before  him,  with  which  in  later 
years,  with  ever-increasing  pleasure,  he  entered  into 
the  works  of  Plato; — above  all,  his  childlike  enjoyment 
of  Herodotus,  and  that  "  fountain  of  beauty  and  delight 
which  no  man,"  he  said,  "  can  ever  drain  dry,"  the 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  141 

poetry  of  Homer.  The  simple  language  of  that  early 
age  was  exactly  what  he  was  most  able  to  reproduce 
in  his  own  simple  and  touching  translations ;  and  his 
eyes  would  fill  with  tears,  when  he  came  to  the  story 
which  told  how  Cleobis  and  Bito,  as  a  reward  for  their 
filial  piety,  lay  down  in  the  temple,  and  fell  asleep  and 
died. 

To  his  pupils,  perhaps,  of  ordinary  lessons,  the  most 
attractive  were  the  weekly  ones  on  Modern  History. 
He  had  always  a  difficulty  in  finding  any  work  which 
he  could  use  with  satisfaction  as  a  text-book.  "  Gib- 
bon, which  in  many  respects  would  answer  the  purpose 
so  well,  I  dare  not  use."  Accordingly,  the  work,  what- 
ever it  might  be,  was  made  the  groundwork  of  his  own 
observations,  and  of  other  reading  from  such  books  as 
the  school  library  contained.  Russell's  Modern  Eu- 
rope, for  example,  which  he  estimated  very  low, 
though,  perhaps  from  his  own  early  acquaintance  with 
it  at  Winchester,  with  less  dislike  than  might  have 
been  expected,  served  this  purpose  for  several  years. 
On  a  chapter  of  this  he  would  engraft,  or  cause  the 
boys  to  engraft,  additional  information  from  Hallam, 
Guizot,  or  any  other  historian  who  happened  to  treat 
of  the  same  period,  whilst  he  himself,  with  that  famil- 
iar interest  which  belonged  to  his  favorite  study  of 
history  and  of  geography,  which  he  always  maintained 
could  only  be  taught  in  connection  with  it,  would  by 
his  searching  and  significant  questions  gather  the 
thoughts  of  his  scholars  round  the  peculiar  charac- 
teristics of  the  age  or  the  country  on  which  he  wished 
to  fix  their  attention.  Thus,  for  example,  in  the  Seven 
Years'  War,  he  would  illustrate  the  general  connection 
of  military  history  with  geography,  by  the  simple  in- 
stance of  the  order  of  Hannibal's  successive  victories ; 
and  then,  chalking  roughly  on  a  board  the  chief  points 
in  the  physical  conformation  of  Germany,  apply  the 
same  principle  to  the  more  complicated  campaigns  of 
Frederick  the  Great.  Or?  again,  in  a  more  general 
examination,  he  would  ask  for  the  chief  events  which 


142  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

occurred,  for  instance,  in  the  year  15  of  two  or  three 
successive  centuries,  and,  by  making  the  boys  contrast 
or  compare  them  together,  bring  before  their  minds 
the  differences  and  resemblances  in  the  state  of  Eu- 
rope in  each  of  the  periods  in  question. 

Before  entering  on  his  instructions  in  theology, 
which  both  for  himself  and  his  scholars  had  most 
peculiar  interest,  it  is  right  to  notice  the  religious 
character  which  more  or  less  pervaded  the  rest  of 
the  lessons.  When  his  pupils  heard  him  in  preach- 
ing recommend  them  "  to  note  in  any  common  work 
that  they  read  such  judgments  of  men  and  things, 
and  such  a  tone  in  speaking  of  them  as  are  manifestly 
at  variance  with  the  Spirit  of  Christ,"  (Serm.  vol.  iii. 
p.  116,)  or  when  they  heard  him  ask,  "  whether  the 
Christian  ever  feels  more  keenly  awake  to  the  purity 
of  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel,  than  when  he  reads  the 
history  of  crimes  related  with  no  true  sense  of  their 
evil,"  (Serm.  vol.  ii.  p.  223,)  instances  would  imme- 
diately occur  to  them  from  his  own  practice,  to  prove 
how  truly  he  felt  what  he  said.  No  direct  instruction 
could  leave  on  their  minds  a  livelier  image  of  his  dis- 
gust at  moral  evil,  than  the  black  cloud  of  indigna- 
tion which  passed  over  his  face  when  speaking  of  the 
crimes  of  Napoleon,  or  of  Ca3sar,  and  the  dead  pause 
which  followed,  as  if  the  acts  had  just  been  committed 
in  his  very  presence.  No  expression  of  his  reverence 
for  a  high  standard  of  Christian  excellence  could  have 
been  more  striking  than  the  almost  involuntary  ex- 
pressions of  admiration  which  broke  from  him  when- 
ever mention  was  made  of  St.  Louis  of  France.  No 
general  teaching  of  the  providential  government  of 
the  world  could  have  left  a  deeper  impression,  than 
the  casual  allusions  to  it,  which  occurred  as  they 
came  to  any  of  the  critical  moments  in  the  history  of 
Greece  and  Rome.  No  more  forcible  contrast  could 
have  been  drawn  between  the  value  of  Christianity 
and  of  heathenism,  than  the  manner  with  which,  for 
example,  after  reading  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  lesson 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  143 

«  of  the  Scripture  descriptions  of  the  Gentile  world, 
"  Now,"  he  said,  as  he  opened  the  Satires  of  Horace, 
"  we  shall  see  what  it  was." 

Still  it  was  in  the  Scripture  *  lessons  that  this  found 
most  scope.  In  the  lower  forms  it  was  rather  that 
more  prominence  was  given  to  them,  and  that  they 
were  placed  under  better  regulations  than  that  they 
were  increased  in  amount.  In  the  Sixth  Form,  be- 
sides the  lectures  on  Sunday,  he  introduced  two  lec- 
tures on  the  Old  or  New  Testament  in  the  course  of 
the  week,  so  that  a  boy  who  remained  there  three 
years  would  often  have  read  through  a  great  part  of 
the  New  Testament,  much  of  the  Old  Testament,  and 
especially  of  the  Psalms  in  the  Septuagiiit  version, 
and  also  committed  much  of  them  to  memory ;  whilst 
at  times  he  would  deliver  lectures  on  the  history  of 
the  early  Church,  or  of  the  English  Reformation.  In 
these  lessons  on  the  Scriptures  he  would  insist  much 
on  the  importance  of  familiarity  with  the  very  words 
of  the  sacred  writers,  and  of  the  exact  place  where 
passages  occurred ;  on  a  thorough  acquaintance  with 
the  different  parts  of  the  story  contained  in  the  several 
Gospels,  that  they  might  be  referred  to  at  once  ;  on 
the  knowledge  of  the  times  when,  and  the  persons  to 
whom,  the  Epistles  wTere  written.  In  translating  the 
New  Testament,  while  he  encouraged  his  pupils  to 
take  the  language  of  the  authorized  version  as  much 
as  possible,  he  was  very  particular  in  not  allowing 
them  to  use  words  which  fail  to  convey  the  meaning 
of  the  original,  or  which  by  frequent  use  have  lost  all 
definite  meaning  of  their  own — such  as  "edification," 
or  "  the  Gospel."  Whatever  dogmatical  instruction  he 
gave  was  conveyed  almost  entirely  in  a  practical  or 
exegetical  shape  ;  and  it  was  very  rarely  indeed  that 
he  made  any  allusion  to  existing  parties  or  controver- 
sies within  the  Church  of  England.  His  own  peculiar 
views,  which  need  not  be  noticed  in  this  place,  trans- 

*  For  his  own  feeling  about  them,  see  Sermons,  vol.  iv.  pp.  317,  321. 


144  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

pired  more  or  less  throughout ;  but  the  great  pro- 
portion of  his  interpretations  were  such  as  most  of 
his  pupils,  of  whatever  opinions,  eagerly  collected  and 
preserved  for  their  own  use  in  after  life. 

But  more  important  than  any  details  was  the  union 
of  reverence  and  reality  in  his  whole  manner  of  treat- 
ing the  Scriptures,  which  so  distinguished  these  les- 
sons from  such  as  may  in  themselves  almost  as  little 
deserve  the  name  of  religious  instruction  as  many  les- 
sons commonly  called  secular.  The  same  searching 
questions,  the  same  vividness  which  marked  his  his- 
torical lessons,  —  the  same  anxiety  to  bring  all  that 
he  said  home  to  their  own  feelings,  which  made  him, 
in  preparing  them  for  confirmation,  endeavor  to  make 
them  say,  "  Christ  died  for  me,"  instead  of  the  gen- 
eral phrase,  "  Christ  died  for  us,"  —  must  often,  when 
applied  to  the  natural  vagueness  of  boys'  notions  on 
religious  subjects,  have  dispelled  it  forever.  "  He  ap- 
peared to  me,"  writes  a  pupil,  whose  intercourse  with 
him  never  extended  beyond  these  lessons,  "  to  be  re- 
markable for  his  habit  of  realizing  everything  that  we 
are  told  in  Scripture.  You  know  how  frequently  we 
can  ourselves,  and  how  constantly  we  hear  others  go 
prosing  on  in  a  sort  of  religious  cant  or  slang,  which 
is  as  easy  to  learn  as  any  other  technical  jargon, 
without  seeing  as  it  were  by  that  faculty,  which  all 
possess,  of  picturing  to  the  mind,  and  acting  as  if 
we  really  saw  things  unseen  belonging  to  another 
world.  Now  he  seemed  to  have  the  freshest  view  of 
our  Lord's  life  and  death  that  I  ever  knew  a  man  to 
possess.  His  rich  mind  filled  up  the  naked  outline  of 
the  Gospel  history  ;  —  it  was  to  him  the  most  interest- 
ing fact  that  has  ever  happened  —  as  real,  as  exciting 
(if  1  may  use  the  expression)  as  any  recent  event  in 
modern  history  of  which  the  actual  effects  are  visible." 
And  all  his  comments,  from  whatever  theory  of  inspi- 
ration they  were  given,  were  always  made  in  a  tone 
and  manner  that  left  an  impression  that  from  the 
book  which  lay  before  him  he  was  really  seeking  to 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  145 

draw  his  rule  of  life,  and,  that  whilst  he  examined 
it  in  earnest  to  find  what  its  meaning  was,  when  he 
had  found  it  he  intended  to  abide  by  it. 

The  effect  of  these  instructions  was  naturally  more 
permanent  (speaking  merely  in  an  intellectual  point 
of  view)  than  the  lessons  themselves,  and  it  was  a 
frequent  topic  of  censure  that  his  pupils  were  led  to 
take  up  his  opinions  before  their  minds  were  duly 
prepared  for  them.  What  was  true  of  his  method 
and  intention  in  the  simplest  matters  of  instruction, 
was  true  of  it  as  applied  to  the  highest  matters.  Un- 
doubtedly it  was  his  belief  that  the  minds  of  young 
men  ought  to  be  awakened  to  the  greatness  of  things 
around  them  ;  and  it  was  his  earnest  endeavor  to  give 
them  what  he  thought  the  best  means  of  attaining  a 
firm  hold  upon  truth.  But  it  was  always  his  wish 
that  his  pupils  should  form  their  opinions  for  them- 
selves, and  not  take  them  on  trust  from  him.  To 
his  particular  political  principles  he  carefully  avoided 
allusion,  and  it  was  rarely  that  his  subjects  for  school 
composition  touched  on  any  topics  that  could  have 
involved,  even  remotely,  the  disputed  points  of  party 
politics.  In  theological  matters,  partly  from  the  na- 
ture of  the  case,  partly  from  the  peculiar  aspect  under 
which  for  the  last  six  years  of  his  life  he  regarded  the 
Oxford  school,  he  bbth  expressed  his  thoughts  more 
openly,  and  was  more  anxious  to  impress  them  upon 
his  pupils  ;  but  this  was  almost  entirely  in  the  com- 
paratively few  sermons  preached  on  what  could  be 
called  controversial  topics.  In  his  intercourse  indeed 
with  his  pupils  after  they  had  left  the  school,  he  natu- 
rally spoke  with  greater  freedom  on  political  or  theo- 
logical subjects,  yet  it  was  usually  when  invited  by 
them,  and,  though  he  often  deeply  lamented  their 
adoption  of  what  he  held  to  be  erroneous  views,  he 
much  disliked  a  merely  unmeaning  echo  of  his  own 
opinions.  "  It  would  be  a  great  mistake,"  he  said, 
"  if  I  were  to  try  to  make  myself  here  into  a  Pope." 

It  was,  however,  an  almost  inevitable  consequence 

VOL.  I.  13  J 


146  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

of  coming  into  contact  with  his  teaching,  and  with  the 
new  world  which  it  opened,  that  his  pupils  would  often, 
on  their  very  entrance  into  life,  have  acquired  a  famil- 
iarity and  encountered  a  conflict  with  some  of  the 
most  harassing  questions  of  morals  and  religion.  It 
would  also  often  happen,  that  the  increasing  reverence 
which  they  felt  for  him  would  not  only  incline  them  to 
receive  with  implicit  trust  all  that  he  said  in  the  les- 
sons or  in  the  pulpit,  but  also  to  include  in  their  admi- 
ration of  the  man  all  that  they  could  gather  of  his 
general  views,  either  from  report  or  from  his  published 
works :  whilst  they  would  naturally  look  with  distrust 
on  the  opposite  notions  in  religion  and  politics,  brought 
before  them,  as  would  often  be  the  case,  in  close 
connection  with  vehement  attacks  on  him,  which  in 
most  cases  they  could  hardly  help  regarding  as  un- 
founded or  unfair.  Still  the  greater  part  of  his  pupils, 
while  at  school,  were,  after  the  manner  of  English  boys, 
altogether  unaffected  by  his  political  opinions  :  and  of 
those  who  most  revered  him,  none  in  after  life  could 
be  found  who  followed  his  views  implicitly,  even  on 
the  subjects  on  which  they  were  most  disposed  to  listen 
to  him.  But  though  no  particular  school  of  opinion 
grew  up  amongst  them,  the  end  of  his  teaching  would 
be  answered  far  more  truly,  (and  it  may  suggest  to 
those  who  know  ancient  history,  similar  results  of  simi- 
lar methods  in  the  hands  of  other  eminent  teachers,) 
if  his  scholars  learned  to  form  an  independent  judg- 
ment for  themselves,  and  to  carry  out  their  opinions 
to  their  legitimate  consequences,  —  to  appreciate  moral 
agreement  amidst  much  intellectual  difference,  not 
only  in  each  other  or  in  him,  but  in  the  world  at  large  ; 
. —  and  to  adopt  many,  if  not  all  of  his  principles,  whilst 
differing  widely  in  their  application  of  them  to  existing 
persons  and  circumstances. 

III.  If  there  is  any  one  place  at  Rugby  more  than 
another  which  was  especially  the  scene  of  Dr.  Arnold's 
labors,  both  as  a  teacher  and  as  a  master,  it  is  the 
School  chapel.  Even  its  outward  forms,  from  "  the 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  147 

very  cross  at  the  top  of  the  building,"  *  on  which  he 
loved  to  dwell  as  a  visible  symbol  of  the  Christian  end 
of  their  education,  to  the  vaults  which  he  caused  to  be 
opened  underneath,  for  those  who  died  in  the  school, 
must  always  be  associated  with  his  name.  "  I  envy 
Winchester  its  antiquity,"  he  said,  "  and  am  therefore 
anxious  to  do  all  that  can  be  done  to  give  us  something 
of  a  venerable  outside,  if  we  have  not  the  nobleness  of 
old  associations  to  help  us."  The  five  painted  win- 
dows in  the  chapel  were  put  up  in  great  part  at  his 
expense,  altogether  at  his  instigation.  The  subject 
of  the  first  of  these,  the  great  east  window,  he  delight- 
ed to  regard  as  "  strikingly  appropriate  to  a  place  of 
education,"  being  "  the  Wise  Men's  Offering,"  and  the 
first  time  after  its  erection  that  the  chapter  describing 
the  Adoration  of  the  Magi  was  read  in  the  church 
service  he  took  occasion  to  preach  upon  it  one  of  his 
most  remarkable  sermons,  that  of  "  Christian  Profes- 
sions —  Offering  Christ  our  best."  (Serm.  vol.  iii.  p. 
112.)  And  as  this  is  connected  with  the  energy  and 
vigor  of  his  life,  so  the  subject  of  the  last,  which  he 
chose  himself  a  short  time  before  his  death,  is  the  con- 
fession of  St.  Thomas,  on  which  he  dwelt  with  deep 
solemnity  in  his  last  hours,  as  in  his  life  he  had  dwelt 
upon  it  as  the  great  consolation  of  doubting  but  faith- 
ful hearts,  and  as  the  great  attestation  of  what  was  to 
him  the  central  truth  of  Christianity,  our  Lord's  divin- 
ity. Lastly,  the  monuments  of  those  who  died  in  the 
school  during  his  government,  and  whose  graves  were 
the  first  ever  made  in  the  chapel ;  above  all,  his  own, 
the  monument  and  grave  of  the  only  head-master  of 
Rugby  who  is  buried  within  its  walls,  give  a  melan- 
choly interest  to  the  words  with  which  he  closed  a  ser- 
mon preached  on  the  founder's  day,  in  1833,  whilst  as 
yet  the  recently-opened  vaults  had  received  no  dead 
within  them :  — 

"  This  roof,  under  which  we  are  now  assembled,  will  hold, 
*  MS.  Sermon. 


148  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

it  is  probable,  our  children  and  our  children's  children ;  may 
they  be  enabled  to  think,  as  they  shall  kneel  perhaps  over  the 
bones  of  some  of  us  now  here  assembled,  that  they  are  pray- 
ing where  their  fathers  prayed;  and  let  them  not,  if  they 
mock  in  their  day  the  means  of  grace  here  offered  to  them, 
encourage  themselves  with  the  thought  that  the  place  had 
long  ago  been  profaned  with  equal  guilt ;  that  they  are  but 
infected  with  the  spirit  of  our  ungodliness."  * 

But  of  him  especially  it  need  hardly  be  said,  that  his 
chief  interest  in  that  place  lay  in  the  three  hundred 
boys  who,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  were  collected,  morn- 
ing and  afternoon,  within  its  walls.  "  The  veriest 
stranger,"  he  said,  "  who  ever  attends  divine  service 
in  this  chapel,  does  well  to  feel  something  more  than 
common  interest  in  the  sight  of  the  congregation  here 
assembled.  But  if  the  sight  so  interests  a  mere 
stranger,  what  should  it  be  to  ourselves,  both  to  you 
and  to  me  ?  "  (Serm.  vol.  v.  p.  403.)  So  he  spoke 
within  a  month  of  his  death,  and  to  him,  certainly,  the 
interest  was  increased  rather  than  lessened  by  its 
familiarity.  There  was  the  fixed  expression  of  coun- 
tenance, exhibiting  the  earnest  attention  with  which, 
after  the  service  was  over,  he,  sat  in  his  place  looking 
at  the  boys  as  they  filed  out  one  by  one,  in  the  orderly 
and  silent  arrangement  which  succeeded,  in  the  latter 
part  of  his  stay,  to  the  public  calling  over  of  their 
names  in  the  chapel.  There  was  the  complete  image 
of  his  union  of  dignity  and  simplicity,  of  manliness  and 
devotion,  as  he  performed  the  chapel  service,  especially 
when  at  the  communion  table  he  would  read  or  rather 
repeat  almost  by  heart  the  Gospel  and  Epistle  of  the 
day,  with  the  impressiveness  of  one  who  entered  into 
it  equally  with  his  whole  spirit  and  also  with  his  whole 
understanding.  There  was  the  visible  animation  with 
which,  by  force  of  long  association  he  joined  in  the 
musical  parts  of  the  service,  to  which  he  was  by  nature 
wholly  indifferent,  as  in  the  chanting  of  the  Niceno 

*  Serm.  vol.  Hi.  p.  211. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  149 

Creed,  which  was  adopted  in  accordance  with  his  con- 
viction that  creeds  in  public  worship  (Serm.  vol.  iii.  p. 
310)  ought  to  be  used  as  triumphant  hymns  of  thanks- 
giving ;  or  still  more  in  the  Te  Deum,  which  he  loved 
so  dearly,  and  when  his  whole  countenance  would  be 
lit  up  at  his  favorite  verse  —  "  When  Thou  hadst  over- 
come the  sharpness  of  death,  Thou  didst  open  the  king- 
dom of  heaven  to  all  believers." 

From  his  own  interest  in  the  service  naturally  flowed 
his  anxiety  to  impart  it  to  his  scholars  :  urging  them 
in  his  later  sermons,  or  in  his  more  private  addresses, 
to  join  in  the  responses,  at  times  with  such  effect  that 
at  least  from  all  the  older  part  of  the  school  the  re- 
sponses were  very  general.  The  very  course  of  the 
ecclesiastical  year  would  often  be  associated  in  their 
minds  with  their  remembrance  of  the  peculiar  feeling, 
with  which  they  saw  that  he  regarded  the  greater  fes- 
tivals, and  of  the  almost  invariable  connection  of  his 
sermons  with  the  services  of  the  day.  The  touching 
recollections  of  those  amongst  the  living  or  the  dead, 
whom  he  loved  or  honored,  which  passed  through 
his  mind  as  he  spoke  of  All  Saints'  Day,  and,  when- 
ever it  was  possible,  of  its  accompanying  feast,  now 
no  longer  observed,  All  Souls'  Day  ;  —  and  the  sol- 
emn thoughts  of  the  advance  of  human  life,  and  of 
the  progress  of  the  human  race,  and  of  the  Church, 
which  were  awakened  by  the  approach  of  Advent,  — 
might  have  escaped  a  careless  observer :  but  it  must 
have  been  difficult  for  any  one  not  to  have  been  struck 
by  the  triumphant  exultation  of  his  whole  manner  on 
the  recurrence  of  Easter  day.  Lent  was  marked  dur- 
ing his  last  three  years,  by  the  putting  up  of  boxes  in 
the  chapel  and  the  boarding-houses,  to  receive  money 
for  the  poor,  a  practice  adopted  not  so  much  with  the 
view  of  relieving  any  actual  want,  as  of  affording  the 
boys  an  opportunity  for  self-denial  and  almsgiving.* 

*  He  feared,  however,  to  introduce  more  religious  services  than  he 
thought  the  boys  would  bear  without  a  sense  of  tedium  or  formality,  on 
which  principle' he  dropped  an  existing  practice  of  devoting  all  the  lessons 

13* 


150  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

He  was  anxious  to  secure  the  administration  of  the 
rite  of  confirmation,  if  possible,  once  every  two  years ; 
when  the  boys  were  prepared  by  himself  and  the  other 
masters  in  their  different  boarding-houses,  who  each 
brought  up  his  own  division  of  pupils  on  the  day  of 
the  ceremony  ;  the  interest  of  which  was  further  en- 
hanced, during  his  earlier  years,  by  the  presence  of 
the  late  Bishop  Ryder,*  for  whom  he  entertained  a 
great  respect,  and  latterly  by  the  presence  of  his  inti- 
mate friend,  Archbishop  Whately.  The  Confirmation 
Hymn  of  Dr.  Hinds,  which  was  used  on  these  occa- 
sions, became  so  endeared  to  his  recollections,  that 
when  travelling  abroad  late  at  night,  he  would  have  it 


in  Passion  Week  to  the  New  Testament;  and  always  hesitated  to  have  a 
chapel  service  on  such  festivals  as  did  not  fall  on  Sundays,  though  in  the  last 
year  of  his  life  he  made  an  exception  with  regard  to  Ascension  Day. 

*  The  following  extract  from  a  sermon,  preached  in  consequence  of  the 
delay  of  confirmation,  may  serve  to  illustrate  as  well  his  general  feeling  on 
the  subject  as  his  respect  for  the  individual. 

"  And  while  I  say  this,  it  is  impossible  not  to  remember  to  what 

cause  this  disappointment  has  been  owing,  namely,  to  the  long  illness  and 
death  of  the  late  excellent  Bishop  of  this  diocese.  This  is  neither  the  place 
nor  the  congregation  for  a  funeral  eulogy  on  that  excellent  person ;  we  knew 
him  too  little,  and  were  too  much  removed  out  of  the  ordinary  sphere  of  his 
ministry,  to  be  able  to  bear  the  best  witness  to  him.  Yet  many  here,  I 
think,  will  remember  the  manner  in  which  he  went  through  the  rite  of  con- 
firmation in  this  chapel  three  years  ago ;  the  earnestness  and  kindness  of  his 
manner,  the  manifest  interest  which  he  felt  in  the  service  in  which  he  was 
ministering.  And  though,  as  I  said,  we  were  comparatively  strangers  to 
him,  yet  we  had  heard  enough  of  him  to  receive,  without  one  jarring  feel- 
ing, the  full  impression  of  his  words  and  manner;  we  knew  that  as  these 
were  solemn  and  touching,  so  they  were  consistent  and  sincere ;  they  were 
not  put  on  for  the  occasion,  nor  yet,  which  is  a  far  more  common  case,  did 
they  spring  out  of  the  occasion.  It  was  not  the  mere  natural  and  momen- 
tary feeling  which  might  have  arisen  even  in  a  careless  mind,  while  engaged 
in  a  work  so  peculiarly  striking;  but  it  was  truly  the  feeling  not  of  the  oc- 
casion, but  or  the  man.  He  but  showed  himself  to  us  as  he  was,  and  thus 
we  might  and  may  dwell  with  pleasure  on  the  recollection,  long  after  the 
immediate  effect  was  over ;  and  may  think  truly  that,  when  he  told  us  how 
momentous  were  the  interests  involved  in  the  promises  and  prayers  of  that 
service,  he  told  us  no  more  than  he  himself  most  earnestly  believed ;  he 
urged  us  to  no  other  faith,  to  no  other  course  of  living,  than  that  which  by 
God's  grace  he  had  long  made  his  own.  It  is  a  great  blessing  to  God's 
church  when  they  who  are  called  to  the  higher  offices  of  the  ministry  in  it 
thus  give  to  their'ministry  the  weight,  not  of  their  words  only,  but  01  their 
lives.  Still  we  must  remember  that  the  care  of  our  souls  is  our  own,  —  that 
God's  means  of  grace  and  warnings,  furnished  us  by  the  ministry  of  his 
church,  are  no  way  dependent  upon  the  personal  character  of  the  minister: 
that  confirmation,  with  all  its  opportunities,  is  still  the  same  point  in  oui 
lives,  by  whomsoever  it  may  be  administered." 


LIFE   OF  DE.  ARNOLD.  151 

repeated  or  sung  to  him.  One  of  the  earliest  public 
addresses  to  the  school  was  that  made  before  the  first 
confirmation,  and  published  in  the  second  volume  of 
his  sermons  ;  and  he  always  had  something  of  the  kind 
(over  and  above  the  Bishop's  charge)  either  before  or 
after  the  regular  chapel  service. 

The  Communion  was  celebrated  four  times  a  year. 
At  first  some  of  the  Sixth-Form  boys  alone  were  in  the 
habit  of  attending ;  but  he  took  pains  to  invite  to  it 
boys  in  all  parts  of  the  school  who  had  any  serious 
thoughts,  so  that  the  number,  out  of  two  hundred  and 
ninety  or  three  hundred  boys,  was  occasionally  a  hun- 
dred, and  never  less  than  seventy.  To  individual  boys 
he  rarely  spoke  on  the  subject,  from  the  fear  of  its 
becoming  a  matter  of  form  or  favor ;  but  in  his  ser- 
mons he  dwelt  upon  it  much,  and  would  afterwards 
speak  with  deep  emotion  of  the  pleasure  and  hope 
which  a  larger  attendance  than  usual  would  give  him. 
It  was  impossible  to  hear  these  exhortations  or  to  see 
him  administer  it,  without  being  struck  by  the  strong 
and  manifold  interest  which  it  awakened  in  him  ;  and 
at  Rugby  it  was  of  course  more  than  usually  touching 
to  him  from  its  peculiar  relation  to  the  school.  When 
he  spoke  of  it  in  his  sermons,  it  was  evident  that 
amongst  all  the  feelings  which  it  excited  in  himself, 
and  which  he  wished  to  impart  to  others,  none  was  so 
prominent  as  the  sense  that  it  was  a  communion  not 
only  with  God,  but  with  one  another,  and  that  the 
thoughts  thus  roused  should  act  as  a  direct  and  espe- 
cial counterpoise  to  that  false  communion  and  false 
companionship  which,  as  binding  one  another  not  to 
good  but  to  evil,  he  believed  to  be  the  great  source  of 
mischief  in  the  school  at  large.  And  when  —  espe- 
cially to  the  very  young  boys,  who  sometimes  partook 
of  the  Communion — he  bent  himself  down  with  looks 
of  fatherly  tenderness,  and  glistening  eyes,  and  trem- 
bling voice,  in  the  administration  of  the  elements,  it 
was  felt,  perhaps  more  distinctly  than  at  any  other 
tune,  how  great  was  the  sympathy  which  he  felt  with 
the  earliest  advances  to  good  in  every  individual  boy. 


152  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

That  part  of  the  chapel  service,  however,  which,  at 
least  to  the  world  at  large,  is  most  connected  with  him, 
as  being  the  most  frequent  and  most  personal  of  his 
ministrations,  was  his  preaching.  Sermons  had  occa- 
sionally been  preached  by  the  head-master  of  this  and 
other  public  schools  to  their  scholars  before  his  coming 
to  Rugby ;  but  (in  some  cases  from  the  peculiar  con- 
stitution or  arrangement  of  the  school)  it  had  never 
before  been  considered  an  essential  part  of  the  head- 
master's office.  The  first  half-year  he  confined  himself 
to  delivering  short  addresses,  of  about  five  minutes' 
length,  to  the  boys  of  his  own  house.  But  from  the 
second  half-year  he  began  to  preach  frequently;  and 
from  the  autumn  of  1831,  when  he  took  the  chap- 
laincy* which  had  then  become  vacant,  he  preached 
almost  every  Sunday  of  the  school  year  to  the  end  of 
his  life. 

It  may  be  allowable  to  dwell  for  a  few  moments  on 
a  practice  which  has  since  been  followed,  whenever  it 
was  practicable,  in  the  other  great  public  schools,  and 
on  sermons  which,  as  they  were  the  first  of  their  kind, 
will  also  be  probably  long  looked  upon  as  models  of 
their  kind,  in  English  preaching.  They  were  preached 
always  in  the  afternoon,  and  lasted  seldom  more  than 

*  Extract  from  a  letter  to  the  Trustees,  applying  for  the  situation :  "  I 
had  no  knowledge  nor  so  much  as  the  slightest  suspicion  of  the  vacancy," 
he  writes,  "  till  I  was  informed  of  it  last  night.  But  the  importance  of  the 
point  is  so  great  that  I  most  respectfully  crave  the  indulgence  of  the  Trus- 
tees to  the  request  I  venture  to  submit  to  them,  namely,  that  if  they  see  no 
objection  to  it,  I  may  myself  be  appointed  to  the  chaplaincy,  waiving,  of 
course,  altogether  the  salary  attached  to  the  office.  Whoever  is  chaplain,  I 
must  ever  feel  myself,  as  head-master,  the  real  and  proper  religious  instructor 
of  the  boys.  No  one  else  can  feel  the  same  interest  in  them,  and  no  one  else 
(I  am  not  speaking  of  myself  personally,  but  merely  by  virtue  of  my  situa- 
tion )  can  speak  to  them  with  so  much  influence.  In  fact  it  seems  to  me  the 
natural  and  fitting  thing,  and  the  great  advantage  of  having  a  separate 
chapel  for  the  school  —  that  the  master  of  the  bovs  should  be  officially  as 
well  as  really  their  pastor,  and  that  he  should  not  devolve  on  another,  how- 
ever well  qualified,  one  of  his  own  most  peculiar  and  solemn  duties.  This, 
however,  is  a  general  question,  which  I  only  venture  so  far  to  enter  upon,  in 
explainiiig  my  motives  in  urging  and  requesting,  in  this  present  instance, 
that  the  Trustees  would  present  me  to  the  Bishon  to  be  licensed,  allowing 
me  altogether  to  decline  the  salary,  because  I  consider  that  I  am  paid  for  my 
eervices  already;  and  that,  being  head-master  and  clergyman,  I  am  bound  to 
be  the  religious  instructor  of  my  pupils  by  virtue  of  my  situation." 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  153 

twenty  minutes,  sometimes  less :  a  new  one  almost 
every  time.  "  A  man  could  hardly,"  he  said,  "  preach 
on  the  same  subject,  without  writing  a  better  sermon 
than  he  had  written  a  few  years  before."  However 
much  they  may  have  occupied  his  previous  thoughts, 
they  were  written  almost  invariably  between  the  morn- 
ing and  afternoon  service  ;  and  though  often  under 
such  stress  of  time  that  the  ink  of  the  last  sentence 
was  hardly  dry  when  the  chapel  bell  ceased  to  sound, 
they  contain  hardly  a  single  erasure,  and  the  manu- 
script volumes  remain  as  accessible  a  treasure  to  their 
possessors,  as  if  they  were  printed.  When  he  first 
began  to  preach,  he  felt  that  his  chief  duty  was  to  lay 
bare,  in  the  plainest  language  that  he  could  use,  the 
sources  of  the  evils  of  schools,  and  to  contrast  them 
with  the  purity  of  the  moral  law  of  Christianity. 
"  The  spirit  of  Elijah,"  he  said,  "  must  ever  precede 
the  spirit  of  Christ."  But  as  he  advanced,  there  is  a 
marked  contrast  between  the  severe  tone  of  his  early 
sermons  in  the  second  volume,  when  all  was  as  yet 
new  to  him,  except  the  knowledge  of  the  evil  which 
he  had  to  combat,  and  the  gentler  tone  which  could 
not  but  be  inspired  by  his  greater  familiarity,  both 
with  his  work  and  his  pupils,  —  between  the  direct 
attack  on  particular  faults  which  marks  the  course 
of  Lent  Sermons  in  1830,  and  the  wish  to  sink  the 
mention  of  particular  faults  in  the  general  principle 
of  love  to  Christ  and  abhorrence  of  sin,  which  marks 
the  summary  of  his  whole  school  experience  in  the 
last  sermon  which  he  ever  preached.  When  he  be- 
came the  constant  preacher,  he  made  a  point  of 
varying  the  more  directly  practical  addresses  with 
sermons  on  the  interpretation  of  Scripture,  on  the 
general  principles  and  evidences  of  Christianity,  or 
on  the  dangers  of  their  after  life,  applicable  chiefly 
to  the  elder  boys.  Amongst  these  last  should  be 
noticed  those  which  contained  more  or  less  the  ex- 
pression of  his  sentiments  on  the  principles  to  which 
he  conceived  his  pupils  liable  hereafter  to  be  exposed 


154  LIFE  OF  DK.  ARNOLD. 

at  Oxford,  and  most  of  which,  as  being  of  a  more  gen- 
eral interest,  he  selected  for  publication  in  the  third 
and  fourth  volumes.  That  their  proportion  to  those 
that  are  published  affords  no  measure  of  their  pro- 
portion to  those  that  are  unpublished,  may  be  seen 
at  once  by  reference  to  the  year's  course  in  the  fifth 
volume,  which  out  of  thirty-four,  contains  only  four, 
which  could  possibly  be  included  in  this  class.  That 
it  was  not  his  own  intention  to  make  them  either  per- 
sonal or  controversial,  appears  from  an  explanation  to 
a  friend  of  a  statement,  which,  in  1839,  appeared  in 
the  newspapers,  that  he  "  had  been  preaching  a  course 
of  sermons  against  the  Oxford  errors."  "  The  origin 
of  the  paragraph  was  simply  this :  that  I  preached  two 
in  February,  showing  that  the  exercise  of  our  own 
judgment  was  not  inconsistent  with  the  instruction 
and  authority  of  the  Church,  or  with  individual  mod- 
esty and  humility,  [viz.  the  thirty-first  and  thirty- 
second  in  vol.  iv.]  They  were  not  in  the  least  con- 
troversial, and  neither  mentioned  nor  alluded  to  the 
Oxford  writers.  And  I  have  preached  only  these  two 
which  could  even  be  supposed  to  bear  upon  their  doc- 
trines. Indeed,  I  should  not  think  it  right,  except 
under  very  different  circumstances  from  present  ones, 
to  occupy  the  boys'  time  or  thoughts  with  such  con- 
troversies." The  general  principles,  accordingly,  which 
form  the  groundwork  of  all  these  sermons,  are  such  as 
are  capable  of  a  far  wider  application  than  to  any  par- 
ticular school  of  English  opinion,  and  often  admit  of 
direct  application  to  the  moral  condition  of  the  school. 
But  the  quick  ears  of  boys  no  doubt  were  always  ready 
to  give  such  sermons  a  more  personal  character  than 
he  had  intended,  or  perhaps  had  even  in  his  mind  at 
the  moment :  and  at  times,  when  the  fear  of  these 
opinions  was  more  forcibly  impressed  upon  him,  the 
allusion  and  even  mention  of  the  writers  in  question 
is  so  direct,  that  no  one  could  mistake  it. 

But  it  was  of  course  in  their  direct  practical  applica- 
tion to  the  boys,  that  the  chief  novelty  and  excellence 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  155 

of  his  sermons  consisted.  Though  he  spoke  with 
almost  conversational  plainness  on  the  peculiar  con- 
dition of  public  schools,  his  language  never  left  an 
impression  of  familiarity,  rarely  of  personal  allusion. 
In  cases  of  notorious  individual  misconduct,  he  gen- 
erally shrunk  from  any  pointed  mention  of  them,  and 
on  one  occasion  when  he  wished  to  address  the  boys 
011  an  instance  of  untruthfulness  which  had  deeply 
grieved  him,  he  had  the  sermon  before  the  regular 
service,  in  order  to  be  alone  in  the  Chapel  with  the 
boys,  without  the  presence  even  of  the  other  masters.* 
Earnest  and  even  impassioned  as  his  appeals  were, 
himself  at  times  almost  overcome  with  emotion,  there 
was  yet  nothing  in  them  of  excitement.  In  speaking 
of  the  occasional  deaths  in  the  school,  he  would  dwell 
on  the  general  solemnity  of  the  event,  rather  than  on 
any  individual  or  agitating  details  ;  and  the  impression 
thus  produced,  instead  of  belonging  to  the  feeling  of 
the  moment,  has  become  part  of  an  habitual  rule  for 
the  whole  conduct  of  life.  Often  he  would  speak  with 
severity  and  bitter  disappointment  of  the  evils  of  the 
place ;  yet  there  was  hardly  ever  a  sermon  which  did 
not  contain  some  words  of  encouragement.  "  I  have 
never,"  he  said  in  his  last  sermon,  "  wished  to  speak 
with  exaggeration  ;  it  seems  to  me  as  unwise  as  it 
is  wrong  to  do  so.  I  think  that  it  is  quite  right  to 
observe  what  is  hopeful  in  us  as  well  as  what  is  threat- 
ening ;  that  general  confessions  of  unmixed  evil  are 
deceiving  and  hardening,  rather  than  arousing ;  that 
our  evil  never  looks  so  really  dark  as  when  we  con- 
trast it  with  anything  which  there  may  be  in  us  of 
good."  (Serm.  vol.  v.  p.  460.) 

*  On  another  occasion,  the  practice  ef  drinking  having  prevailed  to  a 
great  extent  in  the  school,  he  addressed  the  boys  at  considerable  length 
from  his  place  in  the  great  school,  saying  that  he  should  have  spoken  to 
them  from  the  pulpit,  but  that  as  there  were  others  present  in  the  Chapel, 
he  wished  to  hide  their  shame.  And  then,  (savs  one  who  was  present,) 
•'  in  a  tone  of  the  deepest  feeling,  as  if  it  wn»ng  Ttiis  inmost  heart  to  confess 
the  existence  of  such  an  evil  amongst  us,"  he  dwelt  upon  the  sin  and  the 
folly  of  the  habit,  even  where  intoxication  was  not  produced  —  its  evil 
eifects  both  on  body  and  mind  —  the  folly  of  fancying  it  to  be  manly —  its 
general  effect  on  the  school. 


156  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

Accordingly,  even  from  the  first,  and  much  more  in 
after  years,  there  was  blended  with  his  sterner  tono 
a  strain  of  affectionate  entreaty  —  an  appeal  to  prin- 
ciples, which  could  be  appreciated  only  by  a  few  — 
exhortations  to  duties,  such  as  self-denial,  and  visiting 
the  poor,  which  some  at  least  might  practise,  whilst 
none  could  deny  their  obligation.  There  also  ap- 
peared most  evidently  —  what  indeed  pervaded  his 
whole  school  life  —  the  more  than  admiration,  with 
which  he  regarded  those  who  struggled  against  the 
stream  of  school  opinion,  and  the  abiding  comfort 
which  they  afforded  him.  In  them  he  saw  not  merely 
good  boys  and  obedient  scholars,  but  the  companions 
of  everything  high  and  excellent,  with  which  his 
strong  historical  imagination  peopled  the  past,  or 
which  his  lively  sense  of  things  unseen  realized  in 
the  invisible  world.  There  were  few  present  in  the 
chapel  who  were  not  at  least  for  the  moment  touched, 
when,  in  one  of  his  earliest  sermons,  he  closed  one  of 
these  earnest  appeals  with  the  lines  from  Milton  which 
always  deeply  moved  him,  —  the  blessing  on  Abdiel. 

But  more  than  either  matter  or  manner  of  his 
preaching,  was  the  impression  of  himself.  Even  the 
mere  readers  of  his  sermons  will  derive  from  them 
the  history  of  his  whole  mind,  and  of  his  whole  man- 
agement of  the  school.  But  to  his  hearers  it  was 
more  than  this.  It  was  the  man  himself,  there  more 
than  in  any  other  place,  concentrating  all  his  various 
faculties  and  feelings  on  one  sole  object,  combating 
face  to  face  the  evil,  with  which  directly  or  indirectly 
he  was  elsewhere  perpetually  struggling.  He  was  not 
the  preacher  or  the  clergyman  who  had  left  behind  all 
his  usual  thoughts  and  occupations  as  soon  as  he  had 
ascended  the  pulpit.  He  was  still  the  scholar,  the 
historian,  and  theologian,  basing  all  that  he  said,  not 
indeed  ostensibly,  but  consciously,  and  often  visibly, 
on  the  deepest  principles  of  the  past  and  present. 
He  was  still  the  instructor  and  the  schoolmaster,  only 
teaching  and  educating  with  increased  solemnity  and 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  157 

energy.  He  was  still  the  simple-hearted  and  earnest 
man,  laboring  to  win  others  to  share  in  his  own  per- 
sonal feelings  of  disgust  at  sin,  and  love  of  goodness, 
and  to  trust  to  the  same  faith,  in  which  he  hoped  to 
live  and  die  himself. 

It  is  difficult  to  describe,  without  seeming  to  exag- 
gerate, the  attention  with  which  he  was  heard  by  all 
above  the  very  young  boys.  Years  have  passed  away, 
and  many  of  his  pupils  can  look  back  to  hardly  any 
greater  interest  than  that  with  which,  for  those  twenty 
minutes,  Sunday  after  Sunday,  they  sat  beneath  that 
pulpit,  with  their  eyes  fixed  upon  him,  and  their  atten- 
tion strained  to  the  utmost  to  catch  every  word  that  he 
uttered.  It  is  true,  that,  even  to  the  best,  there  was 
much,  and  to  the  mass  of  boys  the  greater  part  of 
what  he  said,  that  must  have  passed  away  from  them 
as  soon  as  they  had  heard  it,  without  any  corresponding 
fruits.  But  they  were  struck,  as  boys  naturally  would 
be,  by  the  originality  of  his  thoughts,  and  what  always 
impressed  them  as  the  beauty  of  his  language  ;  and  in 
the  substance  of  what  he  said,  much  that  might  have 
seemed  useless,  because  for  the  most  part  impracticable 
to  boys,  was  not  without  its  effect  in  breaking  com- 
pletely through  the  corrupt  atmosphere  of  school  opin- 
ion, and  exhibiting  before  them  once  every  week  an 
image  of  high  principle  and  feeling,  which  they  felt 
was  not  put  on  for  the  occasion,  but  was  constantly 
living  amongst  them.  And  to  all  it  must  have  been 
an  advantage,  that,  for  once  in  their  lives,  they  had 
listened  to  sermons,  which  none  of  them  could  asso- 
ciate with  the  thought  of  weariness,  formality,  or  ex- 
aggeration. On  many  there  was  left  an  impression  to 
which,  though  unheeded  at  the  time,  they  recurred  in 
after  life.  Even  the  most  careless  boys  would  some- 
times, during  the  course  of  the  week,  refer  almost 
involuntarily  to  the  sermon  of  the  past  Sunday,  as  a 
condemnation  of  what  they  were  doing.  Some,  whilst 
they  wonder  how  it  was  that  so  little  practical  effect 
was  produced  upon  themselves  at  the  time,  yet  retain 

VOL.   I.  14 


158  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

the  recollection,  (to  give  the  words  of  one  who  so  de- 
scribes himself,)  that,  "  I  used  to  listen  to  them  from 
first  to  last  with  a  kind  of  awe,  and  over  and  over 
again  could  not  join  my  friends  at  the  chapel  door,  but 
would  walk  home  to  be  alone  ;  and  I  remember  the 
same  effects  being  produced  by  them,  more  or  less,  on 
others  whom  I  should  have  thought  as  hard  as  stones, 
and  on  whom  I  should  think  Arnold  looked  as  some  of 
the  worst  boys  in  the  school." 

IV.  Although  the  chapel  was  the  only  place  in 
which,  to  the  school  at  large,  he  necessarily  appeared 
in  a  purely  pastoral  and  personal  relation,  —  yet  this 
relation  extended  in  his  view  to  his  whole  management 
of  his  scholars ;  and  he  conceived  it  to  be  his  duty  and 
that  of  the  other  masters  to  throw  themselves,  as  much 
as  possible,  into  the  way  of  understanding  and  entering 
into  the  feelings  of  the  boys,  not  only  in  their  official 
intercourse,  but  always.  When  he  was  first  appointed 
at  Rugby,  his  friends  had  feared  that  the  indifference 
which  he  felt  towards  characters  and  persons,  with 
whom  he  had  no  especial  sympathy,  would  have  inter- 
fered with  his  usefulness  as  head-master.  But  in  the 
case  of  boys,  a  sense  of  duty  supplied  the  want  of  that 
interest  in  character,  as  such,  of  which,  in  the  case  of 
men,  he  possessed  but  little.  Much  as  there  was  in 
the  peculiar  humor  of  boys  which  his  own  impatience 
of  moral  thoughtlessness,  or  of  treating  serious  or  im- 
portant subjects  with  anything  like  ridicule  or  irony, 
prevented  him  from  fully  appreciating,  yet  he  truly  felt, 
that  the  natural  youthfulness  and  elasticity  of  his  consti- 
tution gave  him  a  great  advantage  in  dealing  with  them. 
— "  When  I  find  that  I  cannot  run  up  the  library  stairs," 
he  said,  "  I  shall  know  that  it  is  time  for  me  to  go." 

Thus  traits  and  actions  of  boys,  which  to  a  stranger 
would  have  told  nothing,  were  to  him  highly  signifi- 
cant. His  quick  and  far-sighted  eye  became  familiar 
with  the  face  and  manner  of  every  boy  in  the  school. 
"  Do  you  see,"  he  said  to  an  assistant-master  who  had 
recently  come,  "  those  two  boys  walking  together  ?  I 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  159 

never  saw  them  together  before ;  you  should  make  an 
especial  point  of  observing  the  company  they  keep  ;  — 
nothing  so  tells  the  changes  in  a  boy's  character." 
The  insight  which  he  thus  acquired  into  the  general 
characteristics  of  boyhood,  will  not  be  doubted  by  any 
reader  of  his  sermons  ;  and  his  scholars  used  sometimes 
to  be  startled  by  the  knowledge  of  their  own  notions, 
which  his  speeches  to  them  implied.  "  Often  and 
often,"  says  one  of  them,  "  have  I  said  to  myself,  '  If 
it  was  one  of  ourselves  who  had  just  spoken,  he  could 
not  more  completely  have  known  and  understood  our 
thoughts  and  ideas.'  '  And  though  it  might  happen 
that  his  opinion  of  boys  would,  like  his  opinions  of 
men,  be  too  much  influenced  by  his  disposition  to 
judge  of  the  whole  from  some  one  prominent  feature, 
and  though  his  fixed  adherence  to  general  rules  might 
sometimes  prevent  him  from  making  exceptions  where 
the  case  required  it ;  yet  few  can  have  been  long  famil- 
iar with  him,  without  being  struck  by  the  distinctness, 
the  vividness,  and,  in  spite  of  great  occasional  mistakes, 
the  very  general  truth  and  accuracy  of  his  delineation 
of  their  individual  characters,  or  the  readiness  with 
which,  whilst  speaking  most  severely  of  a  mass  of  boys, 
he  would  make  allowances,  and  speak  hopefully  in  any 
particular  instance  that  came  before  him.  Often  be- 
fore any  other  eye  had  discerned  it,  he  saw  the  germs 
of  coming  good  or  evil,  and  pronounced  confident  de- 
cisions, doubted  at  the  time,  but  subsequently  proved 
to  be  correct;  so  that  those  who  lived  with  him  de- 
scribed themselves  as  trusting  to  his  opinions  of  boys 
as  to  divinations,  and  feeling  as  if  by  an  unfavorable 
judgment  their  fate  was  sealed. 

His  relation  to  the  boarders  in  his  own  house  (called 
by  distinction  the  School-house,  and  containing  be- 
tween sixty  and  seventy  boys)  naturally  afforded  more 
scope  for  communication  than  with  the  rest  of  the 
school.  Besides  the  opportunities  which  he  took  of 
showing  kindness  and  attention  to  them  in  his  own 
family,  in  cases  of  distress  or  sickness,  he  also  made  use 


160  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

of  the  preparation  for  confirmation  for  private  conversa- 
tion with  them ;  and  during  the  later  years  of  his  life  was 
accustomed  to  devote  an  hour  or  more  in  the  evening 
to  seeing  each  of  them  alone  by  turns,  and  talking  on 
such  topics  as  presented  themselves,  leading  them,  if 
possible,  to  more  serious  subjects.  The  general  man- 
agement of  the  house,  both  from  his  strong  dislike  to 
intruding  on  the  privacy  even  of  the  youngest,  and 
from  the  usual  principles  of  trust  on  which  he  pro- 
ceeded, he  left  as  much  as  possible  to  the  Praepostors. 
Still  his  presence  and  manner  when  he  appeared  offi- 
cially, either  on  special  calls,  or  on  the  stated  occa- 
sions of  calling  over  their  names  twice  a  day,  was  not 
without  its  effect.  One  of  the  scenes  that  most  lives 
in  the  memory  of  his  school-house  pupils  is  their  night- 
muster  in  the  rudely-lighted  hall,  —  his  tall  figure  at 
the  head  of  the  files  of  boys  ranged  on  each  side  of  the 
long  tables,  whilst  the  prayers  were  read  by  one  of 
the  Praepostors,  and  a  portion  of  Scripture  by  himself. 
This  last  was  a  practice  which  he  introduced  soon  after 
his  arrival,  when,  on  one  of  these  occasions,  he  spoke 
strongly  to  the  boys  on  the  necessity  of  each  reading 
some  part  of  the  Bible  every  day,  and  then  added,  that 
as  he  feared  that  many  would  not  make  the  rule  for 
themselves,  he  should  for  the  future  always  read  a 
passage  every  evening  at  this  time.  He  usually  brought 
in  his  Greek  Testament,  and  read  about  half  a  chapter 
in  English,  most  frequently  from  the  close  of  St.  John's 
Gospel ;  then  from  the  Old  Testament,  especially  his 
favorite  Psalms,  the  19th,  for  example,  and  the  107th, 
and  the  others  relating  to  the  beauty  of  the  natural 
world.  He  never  made  any  comment ;  but  his  manner 
of  reading  impressed  the  boys  considerably,  and  it  was 
observed  by  some  of  them,  shortly  after  the  practice 
was  commenced,  that  they  had  never  understood  the 
Psalms  before.  On  Sunday  nights  he  read  a  prayer  of 
his  own,  and  before  he  began  to  preach  regularly  in 
the  chapel,  delivered  the  short  addresses  which  havo 
been  before  mentioned,  and  which  he  resumed,  iu 


LIFE    OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  161 

addition  to  his  other  work  on  Sundays,  during  the  last 
year  and  a  half  of  his  life. 

With  the  boys  in  the  Sixth  Form  his  private  inter- 
course was  comparatively  frequent,  whether  in  the  les- 
sons, or  in  questions  of  school  government,  or  in  the 
more  familiar  relation  in  which  they  were  brought  to 
him  in  their  calls  before  and  after  the  holidays,  their 
dinners  with  him  during  the  half-year,  and  the  visits 
which  one  or  more  used  by  turns  to  pay  to  him  in  West- 
moreland, during  part  of  the  vacation.  But  with  the 
greater  part  of  the  school  it  was  almost  entirely  con- 
fined to  such  opportunities  as  arose  out  of  the  regular 
course  of  school  discipline  or  instruction,  and  the  occa- 
sional invitations  to  his  house  of  such  amongst  the 
younger  boys  as  he  could  find  any  reason  or  excuse 
for  asking. 

It  would  thus  often  happen,  in  so  large  a  number, 
that  a  boy  would  leave  Rugby  without  any  personal 
communication  with  him  at  all ;  and  even  in  the 
higher  part  of  the  school,  those  who  most  respected 
him  would  sometimes  complain,  even  with  bitterness, 
that  he  did  not  give  them  greater  opportunities  of  ask- 
ing his  advice,  or  himself  offer  more  frequently  to 
direct  their  studies  and  guide  their  inquiries.  Lat- 
terly, indeed,  he  communicated  with  them  more  fre- 
quently, and  expressed  himself  more  freely  both  in 
public  and  private  on  the  highest  subjects.  But  he 
was  always  restrained  from  speaking  much  or  often, 
both  from  the  extreme  difficulty  which  he  felt  in  say- 
ing anything  without  a  real  occasion  for  it,  and  also 
from  his  principle  of  leaving  as  much  as  possible  to  be 
filled  up  by  the  judgment  of  the  boys  themselves,  and 
from  his  deep  conviction  that,  in  the  most  important 
matters  of  all,  the  movement  must  come  not  from  with- 
out but  from  within.  And  it  certainly  was  the  case 
that,  whenever  he  did  make  exceptions  to  this  rule, 
and  spoke  rather  as  their  friend  than  their  master,  the 
simplicity  of  his  words,  the  rareness  of  their  occur- 
rence, and  the  stern  background  of  his  ordinary 

14*  K 


162  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

administration  gave  a  double  force  to  all  that  was 
said. 

Such,  for  example,  would  be  the  effect  of  his  speak- 
ing of  swearing  to  a  boy,  not  so  much  in  anger  or  re- 
proof, as  assuring  him  how  every  year  he  would  learn 
to  see  more  and  more  how  foolish  and  disgusting  such 
language  was;  or  again,  the  distinction  he  would 
point  out  to  them  between  mere  amusement  and  such 
as  encroached  on  the  next  day's  duties,  when,  as  he 
said,  "  it  immediately  becomes  what  St.  Paul  calls 
revelling."  Such  also  would  be  the  impression  of  his 
severe  rebukes  for  individual  faults,  showing  by  their 
very  shortness  and  abruptness  his  loathing  and  abhor- 
rence of  evil.  "  Nowhere,"  he  said,  in  speaking  to 
some  boys  on  bad  behavior  during  prayers  at  their 
boarding-house,  —  "  nowhere  is  Satan's  work  more  evi- 
dently manifest  than  in  turning  holy  things  to  ridi- 
cule." Such  also  were  the  cases,  in  which  boys,  who 
were  tormented  while  at  school  with  sceptical  doubts, 
took  courage  at  last  to  unfold  them  to  him,  and  were 
almost  startled  to  find  the  ready  sympathy  with  which, 
instead  of  denouncing  them  as  profane,  he  entered  into 
their  difficulties,  and  applied  his  whole  mind  to  as- 
suage them.  So  again,  when  dealing  with  the  worst 
class  of  boys,  in  whom  he  saw  indications  of  improve- 
ment, he  would  grant  indulgences  which  on  ordinary 
occasions  he  would  have  denied,  with  a  view  of  en- 
couraging them  by  signs  of  his  confidence  in  them  ; 
and  at  times,  on  discovering  cases  of  vice,  he  would, 
instead  of  treating  them  with  contempt  or  extreme 
severity,  tenderly  allow  the  force  of  the  temptation, 
and  urge  it  upon  them  as  a  proof  brought  home  to 
their  own  minds,  how  surely  they  must  look  for  help 
out  of  themselves. 

In  his  preparation  of  boys  for  confirmation  he  fol- 
lowed the  same  principle.  The  printed  questions 
which  he  issued  for  them  were  intended  rather  as 
guides  to  their  thoughts  than  as  necessary  to  be  for- 
mally answered ;  and  his  own  interviews  with  them 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  163 

were  very  brief.  But  the  few  words  which  he  then 
spoke  —  the  simple  repetition,  for  example,  of  the 
promise  made  to  prayer,  with  his  earnest  assurance, 
that  if  that  was  not  true,  nothing  was  true  ;  if  any- 
thing in  the  Bible  could  be  relied  upon,  it  was  that — - 
have  become  the  turning  point  of  a  boy's  character, 
and  graven  on  his  memory  as  a  law  for  life. 

But,  independently  of  particular  occasions  of  inter- 
course, there  was  a  deep  under  current  of  sympathy 
which  extended  to  almost  all,  and  which  from  time  to 
time  broke  through  the  reserve  of  his  outward  manner. 
In  cases  where  it  might  have  been  thought  that  ten- 
derness would  have  been  extinguished  by  indignation, 
he  was  sometimes  so  deeply  affected  in  pronouncing 
sentence  of  punishment  on  offenders,  as  to  be  hardly 
able  to  speak.  "  I  felt,"  he  said  once  of  some  great 
fault  of  which  he  had  heard  in  one  of  the  Sixth  Form 

—  and  his  eyes  filled  with  tears  as  he  spoke,  "  as  if  it 
had  been  one  of  my  own  children,  and,  till  I  had  ascer- 
tained that  it  was  really  true,  I  mentioned  it  to  no  one, 
not  even  to  any  of  the  masters."     And  this  feeling  be- 
gan before  he  could  have  had  any  personal  knowledge 
of  them.     "  If  he  should  turn  out  ill,"  he  said  of  a 
young  boy  of  promise  to  one  of  the  assistant-masters, 
and  his  voice  trembled  with  emotion  as  he  spoke,  "  I 
think   it  would   break   my   heart."      Nor  were   any 
thoughts  so  bitter  to  him,  as  those  suggested  by  the 
innocent  faces  of  little  boys  as  they  first  came  from 
home,  —  nor  any  expressions  of  his  moral  indignation   . 
deeper,  than  when  he  heard  of  their  being  tormented 
or  tempted  into  evil  by  their  companions.     "  It  is  a 
most  touching  thing  to  me,"  he  said  once  in  the  hear- 
ing of  one  of  his  former  pupils,  on  the  mention  of  some 
new  comers,  "  to  receive  a  new  fellow  from  his  father 

—  when  I  think  what  an  influence  there  is  in  this 
place  for  evil  as  well  as  for  good.     I  do  not  know  any- 
thing which  affects  me  more."     His  pupil,  who  had, 
on  his  own  first  coming,  been  impressed  chiefly  by  the 
severity  of  his  manner,  expressed  some  surprise,  add- 


164  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD 

ing,  that  he  should  have  expected  this  to  wear  away 
with  the  succession  of  fresh  arrivals.  "  No,"  he  said, 
"  if  ever  I  could  receive  a  new  boy  from  his  father 
without  emotion,  I  should  think  it  was  high  time  to 
be  off." 

What  he  felt  thus  on  ordinary  occasions,  was  height- 
ened of  course  when  anything  brought  strongly  before 
him  any  evil  in  the  school.  "  If  this  goes  on,"  he 
wrote  to  a  former  pupil  on  some  such  occasion,  "  it 
will  end  either  my  life  at  Rugby,  or  my  life  altogeth- 
er." "  How  can  I  go  on,"  he  said,  "  with  my  Roman 
History  ?  There  all  is  noble  and  high-minded,  and 
here  I  find  nothing  but  the  reverse."  The  following 
extract  from  a  letter  to  his  friend,  Sir  T.  Pasley,  de- 
scribes this  feeling. 

"  Since  I  began  this  letter,  I  have  had  some  of  the  troubles 
of  school-keeping,  and  one  of  those  specimens  of  the  evil  of 
boy-nature,  which  makes  me  always  unwilling  to  undergo  the 
responsibility  of  advising  any  man  to  send  his  son  to  a  public 
school.  There  has  been  a  system  of  persecution  carried  on 
by  the  bad  against  the  good,  and  then,  when  complaint  was 
made  to  me,  there  came  fresh  persecution  on  that  very  account, 
and  divers  instances  of  boys  joining  in  it  out  of  pure  coward- 
ice, both  physical  and  moral,  when  if  left  to  themselves  they 
would  have  rather  shunned  it.  And  the  exceedingly  small 
number  of  boys  who  can  be  relied  on  for  active  and  steady 
good  on  these  occasions,  and  the  way  in  which  the  decent  and 
respectable  of  ordinary  life  (Carlyle's  '  Shams  ')  are  sure  on 
these  occasions  to  swim  with  the  stream  and  take  part  with 

.  the  evil,  makes  me  strongly  feel  exemplified  what  the  Scrip- 
tures say  about  the  strait  gate  and  the  wide  one,  —  a  view  of 
human  nature  which,  when  looking  on  human  h'fe  in  its  full 
dress  of  decencies  and  civilizations,  we  are  apt,  I  imagine,  to 
find  it  hard  to  realize.  But  here,  in  the  nakedness  of  boy- 

'  nature,  one  is  quite  able  to  understand  how  there  could  not  be 
found  so  many  as  even  ten  righteous  in  a  whole  city.  And 
how  to  meet  this  evil  I  really  do  not  know ;  but  to  find  it  thus 
rife  after  I  have  been  [so  many]  years  fighting  against  it,  is 
so  sickening,  that  it  is  very  hard  not  to  throw  up  the  cards  in 
despair  and  upset  the  table.  But  then  the  stars  of  nobleness, 
which  I  see  amidst  the  darkness,  in  the  case  of  the  few 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  165 

good,  are  so  cheering  that  one  is  inclined  to  stick  to  the  ship 
again,  and  have  another  good  try  at  getting  her  about." 

V.  As,  on  the  one  hand,  his  interest  and  sympathy 
with  the  boys  far  exceeded  any  direct  manifestation  of 
it  towards  them,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  the  impression 
which  he  produced  upon  them  was  derived,  not  so 
much  from  any  immediate  intercourse  or  conversation 
with  him,  as  from  the  general  influence  of  his  whole 
character,  displayed  consistently  whenever  he  appeared 
before  them.  This  influence,  with  its  consequent  ef- 
fects, was  gradually  on  the  increase  during  the  whole 
of  his  stay.  From  the  earliest  period,  indeed,  the  boys 
were  conscious  of  something  unlike  what  they  had 
been  taught  to  imagine  of  a  schoolmaster,  and  by 
many  a  lasting  regard  was  contracted  for  him  ;  but  it 
was  not  till  he  had  been  in  his  post  some  years  that 
there  arose  that  close  bond  of  union  which  character- 
ized his  relation  to  his  elder  pupils ;  and  it  was,  again, 
not  till  later  still  that  this  feeling  extended  itself,  more 
or  less,  through  the  mass  of  the  school,  so  that,  in  the 
higher  forms  at  least,  it  became  the  fashion  (so  to 
speak)  to  think  and  talk  of  him  with  pride  and  affec- 
tion. 

The  liveliness  and  simplicity  of  his  whole  behavior 
must  always  have  divested  his  earnestness  of  any  ap- 
pearance of  moroseness  and  affectation.  "  He  calls  us 
fellows"  was  the  astonished  expression  of  the  boys 
when,  soon  after  his  first  coming,  they  heard  him 
speak  of  them  by  the  familiar  name  in  use  amongst 
themselves  ;  and  in  his  later  years,  they  observed  with 
pleasure  the  unaffected  interest  with  which,  in  the 
long  autumn  afternoons,  he  would  often  stand  in  the 
school-field  and  watch  the  issue  of  their  favorite  games 
of  football.  But  his  ascendency  was,  generally  speak- 
ing, not  gained,  at  least  in  the  first  instance,  by  the 
effect  of  his  outward  manner.  There  was  a  shortness, 
at  times  something  of  an  awkwardness,  in  his  address, 
occasioned  partly  by  his  natural  shyness,  partly  by  his 
dislike  of  wasting  words  on  trivial  occasions,  which  to 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

boys  must  have  been  often  repulsive  rather  than  con- 
ciliating ;  something  also  of  extreme  severity  in  his 
voice  and  countenance,  beyond  what  he  was  himself 
at  all  aware  of.  With  the  very  little  boys,  indeed,  his 
manner  partook  of  that  playful  kindness  and  tender- 
ness which  always  marked  his  intercourse  with  chil- 
dren ;  in  examining  them  in  the  lower  forms,  he 
would  sometimes  take  them  on  his  knee,  and  go 
through  picture-books  of  the  Bible  or  of  English  his- 
tory, covering  the  text  of  the  narrative  with  his  hand, 
and  making  them  explain  to  him  the  subject  of  the 
several  prints.  But  in  those  above  this  early  age,  and 
yet  below  the  rank  in  the  school  which  brought  them 
into  closer  contact  with  him,  the  sternness  of  his  char- 
acter was  the  first  thing  that  impressed  them.  In 
many,  no  doubt,  this  feeling  was  one  of  mere  dread, 
which,  if  not  subsequently  removed  or  modified,  only 
served  to  repel  those  who  felt  it  to  a  greater  distance 
from  him.  But  in  many  also,  this  was,  even  in  the 
earlier  period  of  their  stay,  mingled  with  an  involun- 
tary and,  perhaps,  an  unconscious  respect  inspired  by 
the  sense  of  the  manliness  and  straightforwardness  of 
his  dealings,  and  still  more  by  the  sense  of  the  general 
force  of  his  moral  character ;  by  the  belief  (to  use  the 
words  of  different  pupils)  in  "  his  extraordinary  knack, 
for  I  can  call  it  nothing  else,  of  showing  that  his  object 
in  punishing  or  reproving  was  not  his  own  good  or 
pleasure,  but  that  of  the  boy,"  — "  in  a  truthfulness  — 
an  (JXiKpivfia  —  a  sort  of  moral  transparency;"  in  the 
fixedness  of  his  purpose,  and  "  the  searchingness  of 
his  practical  insight  into  boys,"  by  a  consciousness, 
almost  amounting  to  solemnity,  that  "  when  his  eye 
was  upon  you,  he  looked  into  your  inmost  heart ; " 
that  there  was  something  in  his  very  tone  and  outward 
aspect,  before  which  anything  low,  or  false,  or  cruel, 
instinctively  quailed  and  cowered. 

And  the  defect  of  occasional  over-hastiness  and  ve- 
hemence of  expression,  which  during  the  earlier  period 
of  his  stay  at  times  involved  him  in  some  trouble,  did 


LIFE   OF    DR.  ARNOLD.  107 

materially  interfere  with  their  general  notion  of 
his  character.  However  mistaken  it  might  be  in  the 
individual  case,  it  was  evident  to  those  who  took  any 
thought  about  it,  that  that  ashy  paleness  and  that 
awful  frown  were  almost  always  the  expression  not  of 
personal  resentment,  but  of  deep,  ineffable  scorn  and 
indignation  at  the  sight  of  vice  and  sin :  and  it  was 
not  without  its  effect  to  observe  that  it  was  a  fault 
against  which  he  himself  was  constantly  on  the  watch 
—  and  which,  in  fact,  was  in  later  years  so  nearly  sub- 
dued, that  most  of  those  who  had  only  known  him 
during  that  time  can  recall  no  instance  of  it  during 
their  stay. 

But  as  boys  advanced  in  the  school,  out  of  this  feel- 
ing of  fear  "  grew  up  a  deep  admiration,  partaking 
largely  of  the  nature  of  awe,  and  this  softened  into  a 
sort  of  loyalty,  which  remained  even  in  the  closer  and 
more  affectionate  sympathy  of  later  years."  —  "lam 
sure,"  writes  a  pupil  who  had  no  personal  communica- 
tions with  him  whilst  at  school,  and  but  little  after- 
wards, and  who  never  was  in  the  Sixth  Form,  "  that  I 
do  not  exaggerate  my  feelings  when  I  say,  that  I  felt  a 
love  and  reverence  for  him  as  one  of  quite  awful  great- 
ness and  goodness,  for  whom  I  well  remember  that  I 
used  to  think  I  would  gladly  lay  down  my  life  ;  "  add- 
ing, with  reference  to  the  thoughtless  companions  with 
whom  he  had  associated,  "  I  used  to  believe  that  I  too 
had  a  work  to  do  for  him  in  the  school,  and  I  did  for 
his  sake  labor  to  raise  the  tone  of  the  set  I  lived  in, 
particularly  as  regarded  himself."  It  was  in  boys  im- 
mediately below  the  highest  form  that  this  new  feeling 
would  usually  rise  for  the  first  time,  and  awaken  a 
strong  wish  to  know  more  of  him.  Then,  as  they 
came  into  personal  contact  with  him,  their  general 
sense  of  his  ability  became  fixed,  in  the  proud  belief 
that  they  were  scholars  of  a  man  who  would  be  not 
less  remarkable  to  the  world  than  he  was  to  them- 
selves ;  and  their  increasing  consciousness  of  his  own 
sincerity  of  purpose,  and  of  the  interest  which  he  took 


168  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

in  them,  often  awakened,  even  in  the  careless  and  in- 
different, an  outward  respect  for  goodness,  and  au 
animation  in  their  work  before  unknown  to  them. 
And  when  they  left  school,  they  felt  that  they  had 
been  in  an  atmosphere  unlike  that  of  the  world  about 
them  ;  some  of  those  who  lamented  not  having  made 
more  use  of  his  teaching  whilst  with  him,  felt  that  "  a 
better  thought  than  ordinary  often  reminded  them  how 
he  first  led  to  it ;  and  in  matters  of  literature  almost 
invariably  found  that  when  any  idea  of  seeming  origi- 
nality occurred  to  them,  that  its  germ  was  first  sug- 
gested by  some  remark  of  Arnold  "  —  that  "  still  to 
this  day,  in  reading  the  Scriptures  or  other  things, 
they  could  constantly  trace  back  a  line  of  thought  that 
came  originally  from  him,  as  from  a  great  parent 
mind."  And  when  they  heard  of  his  death  they  be- 
came conscious  —  often  for  the  first  time  —  of  the 
large  place  which  he  had  occupied  in  their  thoughts, 
if  not  in  their  affections. 

Such  was  the  case  with  almost  all  who  were  in  the 
Sixth  Form  with  him  during  the  last  ten  years  of  his 
life  ;  but  with  some  who,  from  peculiar  circumstances 
of  greater  sympathy  with  him,  came  into  more  perma- 
nent communication  with  him,  there  was  a  yet  stronger 
bond  of  union.  His  interest  in  his  elder  pupils,  unlike 
a  mere  professional  interest,  seemed  to  increase  after 
they  had  left  the  school.  No  sermons  were  so  full  of 
feeling  and  instruction,  as  those  which  he  preached  on 
the  eve  of  their  departure  for  the  Universities.  It  was 
now  that  the  intercourse  which  at  school  had  been  so 
broken,  and  as  it  were  stolen  by  snatches,  was  at  last 
enjoyed  between  them  to  its  full  extent.  It  was  some- 
times in  a  few  parting  words,  —  the  earnest  blessing 
which  he  then  bestowed  upon  them,  —  that  they  be- 
came for  the  first  time  conscious  of  his  real  care  and 
love  for  them.  The  same  anxiety  for  their  good  which 
lie  had  felt  in  their  passage  through  school,  he  now 
showed,  without  the  necessity  of  official  caution  and 
reserve,  in  their  passage  through  li/e.  To  any  pupil 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  169 

who  ever  showed  any  desire  to  continue  his  connection 
with  him,  his  house  was  always  open,  and  his  advice 
and  sympathy  ready.  No  half-year,  after  the  first  four 
years  of  his  stay  at  Rugby,  passed  without  a  visit  from 
his  former  scholars :  some  of  them  would  come  three 
or  four  times  a  year ;  some  would  stay  in  his  house  for 
weeks.  He  would  offer  to  prepare  them  for  their  uni- 
versity examinations  by  previous  examinations  of  his 
own ;  he  never  shrunk  from  adding  any  of  them  to  his 
already  numerous  correspondents,  encouraging  them 
to  write  to  him  in  all  perplexities.  To  any  who  were 
in  narrow  circumstances,  not  in  one  case,  but  in  sev- 
eral, he  would  at  once  offer  assistance,  sometimes 
making  them  large  presents  of  books  on  their  entrance 
at  the  University,  sometimes  tendering  them  large  pe- 
cuniary aid,  and  urging  to  them  that  his  power  of  doing 
so  was  exactly  one  of  those  advantages  of  his  position 
which  he  was  most  bound  to  use.  In  writing  for  the 
world  at  large,  they  were  in  his  thoughts,  "  in  whose 
welfare,"  he  said,  "  I  naturally  have  the  deepest  inter- 
est, and  in  whom  old  impressions  may  be  supposed  to 
have  still  so  much  force,  that  I  may  claim  from  them 
at  least  a  patient  hearing."  (Serm.  vol.  iv.  Pref.  p.  Iv.) 
And  when  annoyed  by  distractions  from  within  the 
school  or  opposition  from  without,  he  turned,  he  used 
to  say,  to  their  visits,  as  "  to  one  of  the  freshest  springs 
of  his  life." 

They  on  their  side  now  learned  to  admire  those  parts 
of  his  character  which,  whilst  at  school,  they  had  either 
not  known  or  only  imperfectly  understood.  Pupils 
with  characters  most  different  from  each  other's,  and 
from  his  own,  —  often  with  opinions  diverging  more 
and  more  widely  from  his  as  they  advanced  in  life, 
—  looked  upon  him  with  a  love  and  reverence  which 
made  his  gratification  one  of  the  brightest  rewards  of 
their  academical  studies,  —  his  good  or  evil  fame,  a 
constant  source  of  interest  and  anxiety  to  them,  —  his 
approbation  and  censure,  amongst  their  most  prac- 
tical motives  of  action,  —  his  example,  one  of  their 

VOL.    I.  15 


170  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

most  habitual  rules  of  life.  To  him  they  turned  for 
advice  in  every  emergency  of  life,  not  so  much  for  the 
sake  of  the  advice  itself,  as  because  they  felt  that  no 
important  step  ought  to  be  taken  without  consulting 
him.  An  additional  zest  was  imparted  to  whatever 
work  they  were  engaged  in  by  a  consciousness  of  the 
interest  which  he  felt  in  the  progress  of  their  under- 
taking, and  the  importance  which  he  attached  to  its 
result.  They  now  felt  the  privilege  of  being  able  to 
ask  him  questions  on  the  many  points  which  his  school 
teaching  had  suggested  without  fully  developing, — but 
yet  more,  perhaps,  they  prized  the  sense  of  his  sympa- 
thy and  familiar  kindness,  which  made  them  feel  that 
they  were  not  only  his  pupils,  but  his  companions. 
That  youthfulness  of  temperament  which  has  been  be- 
fore noticed  in  his  relation  to  boys,  was  still  more  im- 
portant in  his  relation  to  young  men.  All  the  new 
influences  which  so  strongly  divide  the  students  of  the 
nineteenth  century  from  those  of  the  last,  had  hardly 
less  interest  for  himself  than  for  them ;  and,  after  the 
dulness  or  vexation  of  business  or  of  controversy,  a 
visit  of  a  few  days  to  Rugby  would  remind  them,  (to 
apply  a  favorite  image  of  his  own,)  "  how  refreshing  it 
is  in  the  depth  of  winter,  when  the  ground  is  covered 
with  snow,  and  all  is  dead  and  lifeless,  to  walk  by  the 
sea-shore,  and  enjoy  the  eternal  freshness  and  liveliness 
of  ocean."  His  very  presence  seemed  to  create  a  new 
spring  of  health  and  vigor  within  them,  and  to  give  to 
life  an  interest  and  an  elevation  which  remained  with 
them  long  after  they  had  left  him  again,  and  dwelt  so 
habitually  in  their  thoughts,  as  a  living  image,  that, 
when  death  had  taken  him  away,  the  bond  appeared  to 
be  still  unbroken,  and  the  sense  of  separation  almost 
lost  in  the  still  deeper  sense  of  a  life  and  an  union 
indestructible. 


What  were  the  permanent  effects  of  this  system  and 
influence,  is  a  question  which  cannot  yet  admit  of  an 
adequate  answer,  least  of  all  from  his  pupils.  The 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  171 

of  boys  are,  doubtless,  like  the  mass  of  men,  in- 
capable of  receiving  a  deep  and  lasting  impression  from 
any  individual  character,  however  remarkable  ;  and  it 
must  also  be  borne  in  mind,  that  hardly  any  of  his 
scholars  were  called  by  rank  or  station  to  take  a  leading 
place  in  English  society,  where  the  effect  of  his  teach- 
ing and  character,  whatever  it  might  be  in  itself,  would 
have  been  far  more  conspicuous  to  the  world  at  large. 

He  himself,  though  never  concealing  from  himself 
the  importance  of  his  work,  would  constantly  dwell 
on  the  scantiness  of  its  results.  "  I  came  to  Rugby," 
he  said,  "  full  of  plans  for  school  reform  ;  but  I  soon 
found  that  the  reform  of  a  public  school  was  a  much 
more  difficult  thing  than  I  had  imagined."  And 
again,  "  I  dread  to  hear  this  called  a  religious  school. 
I  know  how  much  there  is  to  be  done  before  it  can 
really  be  called  so."  —  "  With  regard  to  one's  work," 
he  said,  "  be  it  school  or  parish,  I  suppose  the  desira- 
ble feeling  to  entertain,  is  always  to  expect  to  succeed, 
and  never  think  that  you  have  succeeded."  He  hardly 
ever  seems  to  have  indulged  in  any  sense  of  superiority 
to  the  other  public  schools.  Eton,  for  example,  he 
would  often  defend  against  the  attacks  to  which  it  was 
exposed,  and  the  invidious  comparisons  which  some 
persons  would  draw  between  that  school  and  Rugby. 
What  were  his  feelings  towards  the  improvements 
taking  place  there  and  elsewhere,  after  his  coming  to 
Rugby,  have  been  mentioned  already  ;  even  between 
the  old  system  and  his  own,  he  rarely  drew  a  strong 
distinction,  conscious  though  he  must  have  been  of  the 
totally  new  elements  which  he  was  introducing.  The 
earliest  letters  from  Rugby  express  an  unfeigned  pleas- 
ure in  what  he  found  existing,  and  there  is  no  one 
disparaging  mention  of  his  predecessor  in  all  the  cor- 
respondence, published  or  unpublished,  that  has  been 
collected  for  this  work. 

If,  however,  the  prediction  of  Dr.  Hawkins  at  his 
election,  has  been  in  any  way  fulfilled,  the  result  of  his 
work  need  not  depend  on  the  rank,  however  eminent, 
to  which  he  raised  Rugby  School ;  or  the  influence, 


172  LIFE  OF  DR.  ABNOLD. 

however  powerful,  which  he  exercised  over  his  Rugby 
scholars.  And,  if  there  be  any  truth  in  the  following 
letter  from  Dr.  Moberly,  to  whose  testimony  additional 
weight  is  given,  as  well  by  his  very  wide  difference  of 
political  and  ecclesiastical  opinion  as  by  his  personal 
experience,  first  as  a  scholar  at  Winchester,  and  an 
undergraduate  at  Oxford,  then  as  the  tutor  of  the  most 
flourishing  college  in  that  University,  and  lastly,  in  his 
present  position  as  head-master  of  Winchester,  it  will 
be  felt  that,  not  so  much  amongst  his  own  pupils,  nor 
in  the  scene  of  his  actual  labors,  as  in  every  Public 
School  throughout  England,  is  to  be  sought  the  chief 
and  enduring  monument  of  Dr.  Arnold's  head-master- 
ship at  Rugby. 


EXTRACT   FROM   A   LETTER   OP  DR.  MOBERLY,  HEAD-MASTER 
OF    WINCHESTER. 

"  Possibly,"  he  writes,  after  describing  his  own  recollections 
as  a  schoolboy,  "  other  schools  may  have  been  less  deep  in 
these  delinquencies  than  Winchester ;  I  believe  that  in  many 
respects  they  were.  But  I  did  not  find,  on  going  to  the  Uni- 
versity, that  I  was  under  disadvantages  as  compared  with 
those  who  came  from  other  places ;  on  the  contrary,  the  tone 
of  young  men  at  the  University,  whether  they  came  from 
Winchester,  Eton,  Rugby,  Harrow,  or  wherever  else,  was 
universally  irreligious.  A  religious  undergraduate  was  very 
rare,  very  much  laughed  at  when  he  appeared ;  and  I  think  I 
may  confidently  say,  hardly  to  be  found  among  public-school 
men ;  or,  if  this  be  too  strongly  said,  hardly  to  be  found  ex- 
cept in  cases  where  private  and  domestic  training,  or  good 
dispositions  had  prevailed  over  the  school  habits  and  tenden- 
cies. A  most  singular  and  striking  change  has  come  upon 
our  public  schools,  —  a  change  too  great  for  any  person  to  ap- 
preciate adequately,  who  has  not  known  them  in  both  these 
times.  This  change  is  undoubtedly  part  of  a  general  improve- 
ment of  our  generation  in  respect  of  piety  and  reverence,  but 
I  am  sure  that  to  Dr.  Arnold's  personal  earnest  simplicity  of 
purpose,  strength  of  character,  power  of  influence,  and  piety, 
which  none  who  ever  came  near  him  could  mistake  or  ques- 
tion, the  carrying  of  this  improvement  into  our  schools  is 
mainly  attributable.  He  was  the  first.  It  soon  began  to  be 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  173 

matter  of  observation  to  us  in  the  University  that  his  pupils 
brought  quite  a  different  character  with  them  to  Oxford  than 
that  which  we  knew  elsewhere.  I  do  not  speak  of  opinions ; 
but  his  pupils  were  thoughtful,  manly-minded,  conscious  of 
duty  and  obligation,  when  they  first  came  to  college ;  we  re- 
gretted, indeed,  that  they  were  often  deeply  imbued  with 
principles  which  we  disapproved,  but  we  cordially  acknowl- 
edged the  immense  improvement  in  their  characters  in  re- 
spect of  morality  and  personal  piety,  and  looked  on  Dr. 
Arnold  as  exercising  an  influence  for  good,  which  (for  how 
many  years  I  know  not)  had  been  absolutely  unknown  to  our 
public  schools. 

"  I  knew  personally  but  little  of  him.  You  remember  the 
first  occasion  on  which  I  ever  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  him : 
but  I  have  always  felt  and  acknowledged  that  I  owe  more  to 
a  few  casual  remarks  of  his  in  respect  of  the  government  of 
a  public  school,  than  to  any  advice  or  example  of  any  other 
person.  If  there  be  improvement  in  the  important  points  of 
which  I  have  been  speaking,  at  Winchester,  (and  from  the 
bottom  of  my  heart  I  testify  with  great  thankfulness  that 
the  improvement  is  real  and  great,)  I  do  declare,  in  justice, 
that  his  example  encouraged  me  to  hope  that  it  might 
be  effected,  and  his  hints  suggested  to  me  the  way  of  effect- 
ing it. 

"  I  fear  that  the  reply,  which  I  have  been  able  to  make  to 
your  question,  will  hardly  be  so  satisfactory  as  you  expected, 
as  it  proceeds  so  entirely  upon  my  own  observations  and  in- 
ferences. At  the  same  time  I  have  had,  perhaps,  unusual  op- 
portunity for  forming  an  opinion,  having  been  six  years  at  a 
public  school  at  the  time  of  their  being  at  the  lowest,  —  hav- 
ing then  mingled  with  young  men  from  other  schools  at  the 
University,  having  had  many  pupils  from  different  schools, 
and  among  them  several  of  Dr.  Arnold's  most  distinguished 
ones ;  and  at  last,  having  had  near  eight  years'  experience  as 
the  master  of  a  school  which  has  undergone,  in  great  measure, 
the  very  alteration  which  I  have  been  speaking  of.  More- 
over, I  have  often  said  the  very  things  which  I  have  here 
written,  in  the  hearing  of  men  of  all  sorts,  and  have  never 
found  anybody  disposed  to  contradict  them. 

*  Believe  me,  my  dear  Stanley, 

"  Yours  most  faithfully, 

"  GEORGE  MOBERLY." 

15* 


174  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

CHAPTER    IV. 

GENERAL   LIFE   AT   RUGBY. 

IT  was  natural  that  with  the  wider  range  of  duty, 
and  the  more  commanding  position  which  Dr.  Arnold's 
new  station  gave  him,  there  should  have  been  a  new 
stage  in  his  character  and  views,  hardly  less  marked 
intellectually,  than  that  which  accompanied  his  change 
from  Oxford  to  Laleham  had  been  morally.  The  sev- 
eral subjects  of  thought,  which  more  or  less  he  had 
already  entertained,  especially  during  the  two  or  three 
preceding  years,  now  fell  rapidly  one  by  one  into  their 
proper  places.  Ready  as  he  still  was  to  take  the  ad- 
vice of  his  friends  in  practice,  his  opinions  now  took  a 
more  independent  course  :  and  whatever  subsequent 
modification  they  underwent,  came  not  from  without, 
but  from  within.  Whilst  he  became  more  and  more 
careful  to  reconcile  his  own  views  with  those,  whom, 
in  ages  past  or  present,  he  reverenced  as  really  great 
men,  the  circle  within  which  he  bestowed  his  venera- 
tion became  far  more  exclusive.  The  purely  practical 
clement  sank  into  greater  subordination  to  the  more 
imaginative  and  philosophical  tendencies  of  his  mind  ; 
—  in  works  of  poetical  or  speculative  genius,  which  at 
an  earlier  period  he  had  been  inclined  to  depreciate,  he 
now,  looking  at  them  from  another  point  of  view,  took 
an  increasing  delight.  Within  the  letters  of  the  very 
first  year  there  is  a  marked  alteration  visible  even  in  the 
mere  form  of  his  handwriting,  and  the  mode  of  address- 
ing his  friends.  The  character  which  has  already  been 
given  of  his  boyish  verses  at  Oxford,  becomes  less  and 
less  applicable  to  the  simple  and  touching  fragments  of 
poetry  in  which  from  time  to  time  he  expressed  the 
feelings  of  his  later  years.  The  change  of  style  in  his 
published  writings,  from  the  baldness  of  his  earlier 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  175 

works  to  the  vigorous  English  of  his  mature  age,  indi- 
cates the  corresponding  impulse  given  to  his  powers, 
and  the  greater  freedom  and  variety  of  his  new  range 
of  thought. 

With  his  entrance,  therefore,  on  his  work  at  Rugby, 
his  public  life,  (if  it  may  so  be  called,)  no  less  than  his 
professional  life,  properly  begins.  But  what  was  true 
of  the  effect  of  his  own  character  in  his  sphere  as  a 
teacher,  is  hardly  less  true  of  it  in  his  sphere  as  an  au- 
thor. His  works  were  not  merely  the  inculcations  of 
particular  truths,  but  the  expression  of  his  whole 
mind ;  and  excited  in  those  who  read  them  a  senti- 
ment almost  of  personal  regard  or  of  personal  dislike, 
as  the  case  might  be,  over  and  above  the  approbation 
or  disapprobation  of  the  opinions  which  they  contained. 
Like  himself,  they  partook  at  once  of  a  practical  and 
speculative  character,  which  exposed  them,  like  him- 
self, to  considerable  misapprehension.  On  the  one 
hand,  even  the  most  permanent  of  them  seemed  to  ex- 
press the  feeling  of  the  hour  which  dictated  them.  On 
the  other  hand,  even  the  most  transitory  seemed  to 
express  no  less  the  fixed  ideas,  by  which  his  whole  life 
was  regulated :  and  it  may  be  worth  while,  therefore, 
iri  regard  to  both  these  aspects,  without  descending 
into  the  details  and  circumstances  of  each  particular 
work,  which  the  ensuing  correspondence  will  of  itself 
sufficiently  describe,  to  offer  briefly  a  few  remarks 
which  may  serve  as  a  preface  to  all  of  them. 

I.  Greatly  as  his  practical  turn  of  mind  was  modified 
in  his  later  years,  and  averse  as  he  always  was  to  what 
are  technically  called  "  practical  men,"  yet,  in  the 
sense  of  having  no  views,  however  high,  which  he  did 
not  labor  to  bring  into  practice  sooner  or  later,  he  re- 
mained eminently  practical  to  the  end  of  his  life.  "  I 
always  think,"  he  used  to  say,  "  of  that  magnificent 
sentence  of  Bacon,  '  In  this  world,  God  only  and  the 
angels  may  be  spectators.' '  "  Stand  still,  and  see  the 
salvation  of  God,"  he  observed  in  allusion  to  Dr. 
Pusey's  celebrated  sermon  on  that  passage,  "  was  truo 


176  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

advice  to  the  Israelites  on  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea ; 
but  it  was  not  the  advice  which  is  needed  in  ordinary 
circumstances ;  it  would  have  been  false  advice  when 
they  were  to  conquer  Canaan."  "  I  cannot,"  he  said, 
"  enter  fully  into  these  lines  of  Wordsworth  — 

'  To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  breathes  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears.' 

There  is  to  me  something  in  them  of  a  morbid  feeling 
— life  is  not  long  enough  to  take  such  intense  interest 
in  objects  themselves  so  little."  Secluded  as  he  was, 
both  by  his  occupations  and  his  domestic  habits,  from 
contact  with  the  world,  even  more  than  most  men  in 
his  station,  yet  the  interest  with  which,  now  more  than 
ever,  he  entered  into  public  affairs,  was  such  as  can 
rarely  be  felt  by  men  not  actually  engaged  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  country.  The  life  of  a  nation,  he  said, 
was  to  him  almost  as  distinct  as  that  of  an  individual ; 
and  whatever  might  be  his  habitual  subjects  of  public 
interest,  —  the  advance  of  political  and  social  reform, 
—  the  questions  of  peace  and  war,  —  the  sufferings  of 
the  poorer  classes,  —  the  growth  of  those  rising  com- 
monwealths in  the  Australian  colonies,  where,  from 
time  to  time,  he  entertained  an  ardent  desire  to  pass 
the  close  of  his  life,  in  the  hope  of  influencing,  if  pos- 
sible, what  he  conceived  to  be  the  germs  of  the  future 
destinies  of  England  and  of  the  world,  —  came  before 
him  with  a  vividness,  which  seemed  to  belong  rather 
to  a  citizen  of  Greece  or  Rome,  than  to  the  compara- 
tive apathy  and  retirement  of  the  members  of  modern 
states. 

It  was  of  course  only  or  chiefly  through  his  writings 
that  he  could  hope  to  act  on  the  country  at  large :  and 
they  accordingly,  almost  all,  became  inseparably  bound 
up  with  the  course  of  public  events.  They  were  not, 
in  fact,  so  much  words  as  deeds  ;  not  so  much  the 
result  of  an  intention  to  instruct,  as  of  an  incontrolla* 
ble  desire  to  give  vent  to  the  thoughts  that  were  strug- 
gling within  him.  "  I  have  a  testimony  to  deliver," 
was  the  motive  which  dictated  almost  all  of  them.  "  ] 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  177 

must  write  or  die,"  was  an  expression  which  he  used 
more  than  once  in  times  of  great  public  interest,  and 
which  was  hardly  too  strong  to  describe  what  he  felt. 
If  he  was  editing  Thucydides,  it  was  with  the  thought 
that  he  was  engaged,  "  not  on  an  idle  inquiry  about 
remote  ages  and  forgotten  institutions,  but  a  living 
picture  of  things  present,  fitted  not  so  much  for  the 
curiosity  of  the  scholar,  as  for  the  instruction  of  the 
statesman  and  the  citizen."  (Pref.  vol.  iii.  p.  xxii.) 
If  he  felt  himself  called  iipon  to  write  the  history  of 
Rome,  one  chief  reason  was,  because  it  "  could  be  un- 
derstood by  none  so  well  as  by  those  who  have  grown 
up  under  the  laws,  who  have  been  engaged  in  the  par- 
ties, who  are  themselves  citizens  of  our  kingly  com- 
monwealth of  England."  (Pref.  vol.  i.  p.  vii.)  If  he 
was  anxious  to  set  on  foot  a  Commentary  of  the  Scrip- 
tures, it  was  mostly  at  times  when  he  was  struck  by 
the  reluctance  or  incapacity  of  the  men  of  his  own  gen- 
eration to  apply  to  their  own  social  state  the  warnings 
of  the  Apostles  and  Prophets.  If  he  was  desirous  of 
maintaining  against  the  Oxford  school  his  own  views  of 
the  Church,  it  was  that,  "  when  he  looked  at  the  social 
condition  of  his  countrymen,"  he  "  could  not  doubt 
that  here  was  the  work  for  the  Church  of  Christ  to  do, 
that  none  else  could  do  it,  and  that,  with  the  blessing 
of  her  Almighty  Head,  she  could."  (Serm.  vol.  iv. 
Pref.  p.  cxv.) 

It  is  not,  therefore,  to  be  wondered  at,  if  that  impa- 
tience of  present  evil,  which  belonged  aliko  to  his  prin- 
ciples and  his  disposition,  appeared  in  his  writings,  and 
imparted  to  them  —  often,  probably,  unknown  to  him- 
self—  something,  if  not  of  a  polemical  aspect,  at  least 
of  an  attitude  of  opposition  and  attack,  averse  though 
he  was  himself  to  controversy,  and  carefully  avoiding 
it  with  those  whom  he  knew  personally,  even  when  fre- 
quently challenged  to1  enter  upon  it.  "  The  wisdom  of 
winter  is  the  folly  of  spring,"  was  a  maxim  with  him, 
which  would  often  explain  changes  of  feeling  and  ex- 
pression that  to  too  many  might  seem  inconsistencies. 


178  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

"  If  I  were  living  in  London,"  he  said,  "  I  should  not 
talk  against  the  evil  tendencies  of  the  clergy,  any  more 
than  if  I  were  living  in  Oxford  I  should  talk  against 
the  evil  tendencies  of  the  political  economists.  It  is 
my  nature  always  to  attack  that  evil  which  seems  to 
me  most  present."  It  was  thus  a  favorite  topic,  in  his 
exposition  of  Scripture,  to  remark  how  the  particular 
sins  of  the  occasion  were  denounced,  the  particular 
forms  of  Antichrist  indicated  often  without  the  qualifi- 
cation, which  would  have  been  required  by  the  pres- 
ence of  the  opposite  danger.  "  Contrast,"  he  used  to 
say,  "  the  language  of  the  first  chapter  of  Isaiah,  when 
the  hierarchy  of  Judah  was  in  its  full  pride  and  power, 
with  the  language  of  the  second  chapter  of  Malachi, 
when  it  was  in  a  state  of  decline  and  neglect." 

Connected  with  this,  was  the  peculiar  vehemence 
of  language  which  he  often  used,  in  speaking  of  the 
subjects  and  events  of  the  day.  This  was  indeed 
partly  to  be  accounted  for  by  his  eagerness  to  speak 
out  whatever  was  in  his  mind,  especially  when  moved 
by  his  keen  sense  of  what  he  thought  evil  —  partly  by 
the  natural  simplicity  of  his  mode  of  speech,  which 
led  him  to  adopt  phrases  in  their  simplest  sense,  with- 
out stopping  to  explain  them,  or  suspecting  that  they 
would  be  misunderstood.  But  with  regard  to  public 
principles  and  parties,  it  was  often  more  than  this. 
With  every  wish  to  be  impartial,  yet  his  natural  tem- 
perament, as  he  used  himself  to  acknowledge,  made 
it  difficult  for  him  to  place  himself  completely  in 
another's  point  of  view  ;  and  thus  he  had  a  tendency 
to  judge  individuals,  with  whom  he  had  no  personal 
acquaintance,  from  his  conception  of  the  party  to 
which  they  belonged,  and  to  look  at  both  through  the 
medium  of  that  strong  power  of  association,  which  in- 
fluenced materially  his  judgment,  not  only  of  events, 
but  of  men,  and  even  of  places-.  Living  individuals, 
therefore,  and  existing  principles,  became  lost  to  his 
view  in  the  long  line  of  images,  past  and  future,  in 
which  they  only  formed  one  link.  Every  political  or 


LIFE   OF  DR.  AENOLD.  179 

ecclesiastical  movement  suggested  to  him  the  recollec- 
tion of  its  historical  representative  in  past  times,  — 
and  yet  more,  as  by  an  instinct,  half  religious  and  half 
historical,  the  thought  of  what  he  conceived  to  be  the 
prototypes  of  the  various  forms  of  error  and  wicked- 
ness denounced  by  the  Prophets  in  the  Old  Testament, 
or  by  our  Lord  and  his  Apostles  in  the  New.  And 
looking  not  backwards  only,  but  forwards,  to  their 
remotest  consequences,  and  again  guiding  himself, 
as  he  thought,  by  the  example  of  the  language  of 
St.  Paul,  who  "  seemed  to  have  had  his  eye  fixed  in 
vision  rather  upon  the  full-grown  evil  of  later  times, 
than  upon  the  first  imperfect  show  —  the  faint  indica- 
tions of  it  —  in  his  own  time,"  (Serm.  vol.  v.  p.  346,) 
he  saw  in  them  the  germs  of  mischief  yet  to  come, — 
not  only  the  mischief  of  their  actual  triumph,  but  the 
mischief  of  the  reaction  against  them. 

There  was  besides  a  peculiar  importance  attaching, 
in  his  view,  to  political  questions,  with  which  every 
reader  of  his  works  must  be  familiar.  The  life  of  the 
commonwealth  is  to  him  the  main  subject  of  history — 
the  laws  of  political  science  the  main  lesson  of  history 
—  "the  desire  of  taking  an  active  share  in  the  great 
work  of  government,  the  highest  earthly  desire  of  the 
ripened  mind."  And  those  who  read  his  letters  will 
be  startled  at  times  by  the  interest  with  which  he 
watches  the  changes  of  administration,  where  to  many 
the  real  difference  would  seem  to  be  comparatively 
trifling.  Thus  he  would  speak  of  a  ministry  advo- 
cating even  good  measures  inconsistently  with  their 
position  or  principles,  "  as  a  daily  painfulness  —  a 
moral  east  wind,  which  made  him  feel  uncomfort- 
able, without  any  particular  ailment "  —  or  lament 
the  ascendency  of  false  political  views,  as  tending 
"  to  the  sure  moral  degradation  of  the  whole  com- 
munity,  and  the  ultimate  social  disorganization  of  our 
system,"  "  not  from  reading  the  Morning  Chronicle  or 
the  Edinburgh  Review,  but  from  reading  the  Bibla 
and  Aristotle,  and  all  history." 


180  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

Such  expressions  as  these  must  indeed  be  taken 
with  the  necessary  qualifications  .which  belong  to  all 
words  spoken  to  intimate  friends  in  a  period  of  great 
excitement.  But  they  may  serve  to  illustrate  at  least 
the  occasional  strength  of  feeling  which  it  is  the  object 
of  these  remarks  to  explain.  It  arose,  no  doubt,  in 
part  from  his  tendency  to  view  all  things  in  a  practical 
and  concrete  form,  and  in  part  from  his  belief  of  the 
large  power  possessed  by  the  supreme  governors  of 
society  over  the  social  and  moral  condition  of  those 
intrusted  to  them.  But  there  were  also  real  prin- 
ciples present  to  his  mind  whenever  he  thus  spoke, 
which  seemed  to  him  so  certain,  that  "  daily  expe- 
rience could  hardly  remove  his  wonder  at  finding 
that  they  did  not  appear  so  to  others."  (Mod.  Hist. 
Lect.  p.  391.)  What  these  principles  were  in  detail, 
his  own  letters  will  sufficiently  show.  But  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  how,  whilst  he  certainly  believed  that 
they  were  exemplified  to  a  great  degree  in  the  actual 
state  of  English  politics,  the  meaning  which  he  at- 
tached to  them  rose  so  far  above  their  meaning  as 
commonly  used,  that  it  could  hardly  be  thought  that 
the  same  subject  was  spoken  of.  Conservatism  in  his 
mouth  was  not  merely  the  watchword  of  an  English 
party,  but  the  symbol  of  an  evil,  against  which  his 
whole  life,  public  and  private,  was  one  continued 
struggle,  which  he  dreaded  in  his  own  heart  no  less 
than  in  the  institutions  of  his  country,  and  his  abhor- 
rence of  which  will  be  found  to  pervade  not  only  the 
pamphlets  which  have  been  most  condemned,  but  the 
sermons  which  have  been  most  admired,  namely,  the 
spirit  of  resistance  to  all  change.  Jacobinism,  again, 
in  his  use  of  the  word,  included  not  only  the  extreme 
movement  party  in  France  or  England,  to  which  he 
usually  applied  it,  but  all  the  natural  tendencies  of 
mankind,  whether  "  democratical,  priestly,  or  chival- 
rous," to  oppose  the  authority  of  Law,  divine  and 
human,  which  he  regarded  with  so  deep  a  reverence. 
Popular  principles  and  democracy  (when  he  used 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  181 

these  words  in  a  good  sense)  were  not  the  opposi- 
tion to  an  hereditary  monarchy  or  peerage,  which  he 
always  valued  as  precious  elements  of  national  life, 
but  were  inseparably  blended  with  his  strong  belief  in 
the  injustice  and  want  of  sympathy  generally  shown 
by  the  higher  to  the  lower  orders,  —  a  belief  which 
he  often  declared  had  been  first  brought  home  to  him, 
when,  after  having  as  a  young  man  at  Oxford  held 
the  opposite  view,  he  first  began  seriously  to  study  the 
language  used  with  regard  to  it  by  St.  James  and  the 
Old  Testament  Prophets.  Liberal  principles  were  not 
merely  the  expression  of  his  adherence  to  a  Whig  min- 
istry, but  of  his  belief  in  the  constant  necessity  of  ap- 
plying those  principles  of  advance  and  reform,  which, 
in  their  most  perfect  development,  he  conceived  to 
be  identical  with  Christianity  itself.  Even  in  their 
lower  exemplifications,  and  in  every  age  of  the  world 
except  that  before  the  Fall  of  man  from  Paradise,  he 
maintained  them  to  have  been,  by  the  very  constitu- 
tion of  human  society,  the  representatives  of  the  cause 
of  wisdom  and  goodness.  And  this  truth,  no  less  cer- 
tain in  his  judgment  than  the  ordinary  deductions  of 
natural  theology,  he  believed  to  have  been  placed  on 
a  still  firmer  basis  by  the  higher  standard  held  out  in 
the  Christian  religion,  and  the  revelation  of  a  moral 
law,  which  no  intermixture  of  races  or  change  of  na- 
tional customs  could  possibly  endanger. 

That  he  was  not,  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word, 
a  member  of  any  party,  is  best  shown  by  the  readiness 
with  which  all  parties  alike,  according  to  the  fashion 
of  the  time,  claimed  or  renounced  him  as  an  associate. 
Ecclesiastically,  he  neither  belonged,  nor  felt  himself 
to  belong,  to  any  of  the  existing  sections  of  the  Eng- 
lish clergy ;  and  from  the  so-called  High  Church,  Low 
Church,  and  Evangelical  bodies  he  always  stood,  not 
perhaps  equally,  but  yet  decidedly  aloof.  Politically, 
indeed,  he  held  himself  to  be  a  strong  Whig  :  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  he  found  that  in  cases  of  practical  co- 
operation with  that  party,  he  differed  almost  as  much 

VOL.    I.  16 


182  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

from  them  as  from  their  opponents ;  and  would  often 
confess  with  sorrow,  that  there  were  none  among  th<>m 
who  realized  what  seemed  to  him  their  true  principles.* 
And  whilst  in  later  years  his  feelings  and  language  ou 
these  subjects  were  somewhat  modified,  he  at  all  times, 
even  when  most  tenaciously  holding  to  his  opinions, 
maintained  the  principle,  that  "  political  truths  are 
not,  like  moral  truths,  to  be  held  as  absolutely  cer- 
tain, nor  ever  wholly  identical  with  the  professions  or 
practice  of  any  party  or  individual."  (Pref.  to  Hist. 
of  Rome,  vol.  i.  p.  11.)  There  were  few  warnings  to 
his  pupils  on  the  entrance  into  life  more  solemn,  tlmn 
those  against  party  spirit,  against  giving  to  any  human 
party,  sect,  society,  or  cause,  that  undivided  sympathy 
and  service  which  he  held  to  be  due  only  to  the  one 
party,  and  cause  of  all  good  men  under  their  Divine 
Head.f  There  were  few  more  fervent  aspirations  for 
his  children,  than  that  with  which  he  closes  a  letter 
in  1833  :  "  May  God  grant  to  my  sons,  if  they  live  to 
manhood,  an  unshaken  love  of  truth,  and  a  firm  reso- 
lution to  follow  it  for  themselves,  with  an  intense  ab- 
horrence of  all  party  ties,  save  that  one  tie,  which 
binds  them  to  the  party  of  Christ  against  wickedness." 
II.  But  no  temporary  interest  or  excitement  was 
allowed  to  infringe  on  the  loftiness  or  the  unity  of  his 
ultimate  ends,  to  which  every  particular  plan  that  he 
took  up,  and  every  particular  line  of  thought  which 
he  followed,  were  completely  subordinate.  However 
open  to  objection  may  have  been  many  of  his  practical 

#  The  interest  which  in  his  earlier  life  he  took  in  the  lending  questions 
of  political  economy,  though  it  was  always  kept  alive  by  his  general  sym- 
patny  with  all  subjects  relating  to  the  social  state  of  the  country,  was  yet 
in  his  later  years  considerably  abated,  by  growing  consciousness  of  his  igno- 
rance of  the  subject.  On  some  points,  however,  he  always  felt  and  spoke 
strongly.  The  corn  law?,  for  example,  he  always  regarded,  though  not  as 
the  chief  cause  of  national  distress,  yet  as  a  great  evil,  the  removal  of  which 
was  imperatively  demanded  by  sound  economical  principles;  and  of  the 
practice  of  accumulating  national  debts,  he  said,  in  tne  last  year  of  his  life, 
that  he  rejoiced  in  few  things  more  in  his  professorial  lectures  at  Oxford, 
than  in  the  protest  which  he  had  there  made  against  it  "  Woe  be  to  that 
generation  mat  is  living  in  England,"  he  used  to  say,  "  when  the  coal-miiiei 
are  exhausted  and  the  national  debt  not  paid  off." 

t  Se«  Sermon  on  "  Who  are  partakers  in  our  hope  V  "  vol.  iii. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  183 

suggestions,  it  must  bo  remembered  that  they  were 
never  the  result  of  accidental  fancies,  but  of  fixed  and 
ruling  ideas.  However  fertile  he  might  be  in  supply- 
ing details  when  called  for,  it  was  never  on  them,  but 
on  principles,  that  he  rested  his  claim  to  be  heard ; 
often  and  often  he  declared  that  if  these  could  be  re- 
ceived and  acted  upon,  he  cared  nothing  for  the  par- 
ticular applications  of  them,  which  he  might  have 
proposed,  and  nothing  for  the  failure  of  particular 
schemes,  if  he  could  hope  that  his  example  would 
excite  others  to  execute  them  better. 

Striving  to  fulfil  in  his  measure  the  definition  of 
man,  in  which  he  took  especial  pleasure,  "  a  being  of 
large  discourse,  looking  before  and  after,"  he  learned 
more  and  more,  whilst  never  losing  his  hold  on  the 
present,  to  live  also  habitually  in  the  past  and  for  the 
future.  Vehement  as  he  was  in  assailing  evil,  his 
whole  mind  was  essentially  not  destructive  but  con- 
structive ;  his  love  of  reform  was  in  exact  proportion 
to  his  love  of  the  institutions  which  he  wished  to  re- 
form ;  his  hatred  of  shadows  in  exact  proportion  to 
his  love  of  realities.  "  He  was  an  idoloclast,"  says 
Archdeacon  Hare,  "  at  once  zealous  and  fearless  in 
demolishing  the  reigning  idols,  and  at  the  same  time 
animated  with  a  reverent  love  for  the  ideas  which 
those  idols  carnalize  and  stifle."  Impatient  as  he  was, 
even  to  restlessness,  of  evils  which  seemed  to  him 
capable  of  remedy,  he  yet  was  ready,  as  some  have 
thought  even  to  excess,  to  repose  with  the  most  un- 
doubting  confidence  on  what  he  held  to  be  a  general 
law.  "  Ah,"  he  said,  speaking  to  a  friend  of  the  par- 
able of  the  "  earth,  of  herself,  bringing  forth  first  the 
blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear," 
"  how  much  there  is  in  those  words  :  I  hope  some  day 
to  be  able  to  work  at  them  thoroughly."  "  We  walk 
by  faith  and  not  by  sight,"  was  a  truth  on  which  in  its 
widest  sense  he  endeavored  to  dwell  alike  in  his  pri- 
vate and  public  relations, -  — alike  in  practice  and  in 
speculation.  "  You  know  you  dc  what  God  does," 


184  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

was  his  answer  to  an  expression  of  a  painful  sense  of 
the  increase  of  a  child's  responsibility  by  an  early 
Christian  education.  "  We  may  be  content,  I  think, 
to  share  the  responsibility  with  Christ."  'And  on  more 
general  subjects,  "  We  must  brace  our  minds,"  he 
said,  in  an  unpublished  sermon,  "  we  must  brace  our 
minds  to  the  full  extent  of  that  great  truth  —  that 
*  no  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time ; '  still  amidst 
outward  darkness  and  inward,  —  amidst  a  world  going 
on,  as  it  seems,  its  own  course,  with  no  other  laws  than 
those  which  God  has  given  to  nature ;  —  amidst  all 
the  doubts  and  perplexities  of  our  own  hearts  —  the 
deepest  difficulties  sitting  hard  beside  the  most  blessed 
truths  —  still  we  must  seek  after  the  Lord  with  un- 
abated faith  if  so  be  that  we  may  find  him."  It  was 
not  that  he  was  not  conscious  of  difficulties,  but  that 
(to  apply  his  own  words)  "  before  a  confessed  and  un- 
conquerable difficulty  his  mind  reposed  as  quietly  as 
in  possession  of  a  discovered  truth." 

His  time  for  reading  at  Laleham  and  Rugby  was 
necessarily  limited  by  his  constant  engagements ;  but 
his  peculiar  habits  and  turn  of  mind  enabled  him  to 
accomplish  much,  which  to  others  in  similar  circum- 
stances would  have  been  impossible.  He  had  a  re- 
markable facility  for  turning  to  account  spare  frag- 
ments of  time  —  for  appropriating  what  he  casually 
heard,  and  for  mastering  the  contents  of  a  book  by  a 
very  rapid  perusal.  His  memory  was  exceedingly 
retentive  of  all  subjects  in  which  lie  took  any  interest ; 
and  the  studies  of  his  youth  —  especially  of  what  he 
used  to  call  the  "  golden  time ''  between  his  degree 
and  his  leaving  Oxford  —  were  perpetually  supplying 
him  with  materials  for  his  later  labors.  The  custom 
which  he  then  began,  of  referring  at  once  to  the 
sources  and  original  documents  of  history,  as  in  Ry- 
mer,  Moiitfaucon,  and  the  Summa  Conciliorum,  gave 
a  lasting  freshness  and  solidity  to  his  knowledge  ;  and, 
instead  of  merely  exchanging  his  later  for  his  earlier 
acquisitions,  the  one  seemed  to  be  a  natural  develop- 
ment of  the  other. 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  185 

Whenever  a  new  line  of  study  was  opened  to  him, 
he  fearlessly  followed  it ;  a  single  question  would  often 
cost  him  much  research  in  books  for  which  he  nat- 
urally cared  but  little;  for  philological  purposes  he 
was  endeavoring  even  in  his  latest  years  to  acquire  a 
knowledge  of  the  Sanscrit  and  Sclavonic  languages ; 
he  was  constantly  engaged  in  correspondence  with 
scientific  men  or  scholars  on  minute  points  of  history 
or  geography ;  in  theology  he  had  almost  always  on 
hand  one  of  the  early  Christian  writers,  with  a  view  to 
the  ultimate  completion  of  his  great  work  on  Church 
and  State.  He  had  a  great  respect  for  learning, 
though  impatient  of  the  pretensions  to  the  name  often 
made  by  a  mere  amount  of  reading ;  and  the  standard 
of  what  was  required  in  order  to  treat  of  any  subject 
fully,  was  perpetually  rising  before  him.  It  would 
often  happen,  from  the  necessity  of  the  case,  that  his 
works  were  written  in  haste,  and  were  therefore  some- 
times expressed  nakedly  and  abruptly.  But  it  would 
be  wrong  to  infer  from  the  unblotted,  unrevised  manu- 
script, which  went  to  the  press  as  it  came  from  his  pen, 
that  it  was  not  the  result  of  much  thought  and  reading ; 
although  he  hardly  ever  corrected  what  he  had  once 
written,  yet  he  often  approached  the  same  subject  in 
various  forms  ;  the  substance  of  every  paragraph  had, 
as  he  often  said,  been  in  his  mind  for  years,  and  some- 
times had  been  actually  written  at  greater  length  or  in 
another  shape ;  his  sense  of  deficient  knowledge  often 
deterred  him  from  publishing  on  subjects  of  the  great- 
est interest  to  him  ;  he  always  made  it  a  point  to  read 
far  more  than  he  expressed  in  writing,  and  to  write 
much  which  he  never  gave  to  the  world. 

What  he  actually  achieved  in  his  works  falls  so  far 
short  of  what  he  intended  to  achieve,  that  it  seems 
almost  like  an  injustice  to  judge  of  his  aims  and  views 
by  them.  Yet,  even  in  what  he  had  already  published 
in  his  lifetime,  he  was  often  the  first  to  delineate  in 
outline  what  others  may  hereafter  fill  up  ;  the  first  to 
give  expression  in  England  to  views  which,  on  the  con- 

16* 


186  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

tinent,  had  been  already  attained  ;  the  first  to  propose, 
amidst  obloquy  or  indifference,  measures  and  princi- 
ples which  the  rapid  advance  of  public  opinion  has  so 
generally  adopted,  as  almost  to  obliterate  the  remem- 
brance of  who  first  gave  utterance  to  them.  And 
those  who  know  the  intentions  which  were  interrupted 
by  his  premature  death  will  form  their  notion  of  what 
he  was  as  an  historian,  philosopher,  and  theologian, 
not  so  much  from  the  actual  writings  which  he  lived 
to  complete,  as  from  the  design  of  the  three  great 
works,  to  which  he  looked  forward  as  the  labors  of  his 
latest  years,  and  which,  as  belonging  not  more  to  one 
period  of  his  life  than  another,  and  as  forming,  even  in 
his  mere  conception  of  them,  the  centres  of  all  that  he 
thought  or  wrote  on  whatever  subject,  would  have  fur- 
nished the  key  to  all  his  views  —  a  History  of  Rome, 
a  Commentary  on  the  New  Testament,  and,  in  some 
sense  including  both  of  these  within  itself,  a  Treatise 
on  Church  and  State,  or  Christian  Politics. 

1.  His  early  fondness  for  history  grew  constantly 
upon  him  ;  he  delighted  in  it,  as  feeling  it  to  be  "  sim- 
ply a  search  after  truth,  where,  by  daily  becoming 
more  familiar  with  it,  truth  seems  forevermore  within 
your  grasp : "  the  images  of  the  past  were  habitually 
in  his  mind,  and  haunted  him  even  in  sleep  with  a 
vividness  which  would  bring  before  hinl  some  of  the 
most  striking  passages  in  ancient  history,  —  as  if  pres- 
ent at  the  assassination  of  Caesar,  remembering  dis- 
tinctly his  conversation  with  Decimus  Brutus,  and  all 
the  tumult  of  the  scene  in  the  Capitol,  or  again  at  the 
siege  of  Jerusalem  in  the  army  of  Titus,  or  walking 
round  the  walls  of  Syracuse  with  Alcibiades ;  or  watch- 
ing the  events  of  the  civil  wars  of  Rome,  crowded  by 
the  vagaries  of  a  dream  into  the  space  of  twenty-four 
hours,  with  all  their  different  characters, —  Sylla  es- 
pecially with  the  livid  spots  upon  his  face,  but  yet  with 
the  air  and  manner  of  Walter  Scott's  Claverhouse. 
What  objects  he  put  before  him,  as  an  historian,  may 
best  be  judged  from  his  own  view  of  the  province  of 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  187 

history.  It  was,  indeed,  altogether  imperfect,  in  his 
judgment,  unless  it  was  "  not  only  a  plan,  but  a  pic- 
ture ; "  unless  it  represented  "  what  men  thought,  what 
they  hated,  and  what  they  loved ; "  unless  it  pointed 
the  way  to  that  higher  region  within  which  she  her- 
self is  not  permitted  to  enter ;  *  and  in  the  details  of 
geographical  or  military  descriptions  he  took  especial 
pleasure,  and  himself  remarkably  excelled  in  them. 
Still,  it  was  in  the  dramatic  faculty  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  metaphysical  faculty  on  the  other  hand,  that 
he  felt  himself  deficient ;  and  it  is  accordingly  in  the 
political  rather  than  the  philosophical  or  biographical 
department  of  history,  —  in  giving  a  combined  view  of 
different  states  or  of  different  periods,  —  in  analyzing 
laws,  parties,  and  institutions,  that  his  chief  merit  con- 
sists. 

What  were  his  views  of  Modern  History  will  appear 
in  the  mention  of  his  Oxford  Professorship.  But  it 
was  in  ancient  history  that  he  naturally  felt  the  great- 
est delight.  "  I  linger  round  a  subject,  which  nothing 
could  tempt  me  to  quit  but  the  consciousness  of  treat- 
ing it  too  unworthily,"  were  his  expressions  of  regret 
when  he  had  finished  his  edition  of  Thucydides  ;  "  the 
subject  of  what  is  miscalled  ancient  history,  the  really 
modern  history  of  the  civilization  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
which  has  for  years  interested  me  so  deeply,  that  it  is 
painful  to  feel  myself,  after  all,  so  unable  to  paint  it 
fully."  His  earliest  labors  had  been  devoted  not  to 
Roman,  but  to  Greek  history  ;  and  there  still  remains 
amongst  his  MSS.  a  short  sketch  of  the  rise  of  the 
Greek  nation,  written  between  1820  and  1823,  and 
carried  down  to  the  time  of  the  Persian  wars.  And 
in  later  years,  his  edition  of  Thucydides,  undertaken 
originally  with  the  ^sign  of  illustrating  that  author 
rather  historically  than  philologically,  contains  in  its 
notes  and  appendices,  the  most  systematic  remains  of 
his  studies  in  this  direction,  and  at  one  time  promised 

*  History  of  Rome,  vo!.  i.  p.  98;  vol.  ii.  p.  173. 


188  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

to  embody  his  thoughts  on  the  most  striking  periods  of 
Athenian  history.  Nor,  after  he  had  abandoned  this 
design,  did  he  ever  lose  his  interest  in  the  subject ;  his 
real  sympathies  (if  one  may  venture  to  say  so)  were 
always  with  Athens  rather  than  with  Rome  ;  some  of 
the  most  characteristic  points  of  his  mind  were  Greek 
rather  than  Roman ;  from  the  vacancy  of  the  early 
Roman  annals  he  was  forever  turning  to  the  contempo- 
rary records  of  the  Greek  commonwealths  to  pay  "  an 
involuntary  tribute  of  respect  and  affection  to  old  asso- 
ciations and  immortal  names  on  which  we  can  scarcely 
dwell  too  long  or  too  often ; "  the  falsehood  and  empti- 
ness of  the  Latin  historians  were  forever  suggesting  the 
contrast  of  their  Grecian  rivals ;  the  two  opposite  poles 
in  which  he  seemed  to  realize  his  ideals  of  the  worst 
and  the  best  qualities  of  an  historian,  with  feelings  of 
personal  antipathy  and  sympathy  towards  each,  were 
Livy  and  Thucydides. 

Even  these  scattered  notices  of  what  he  had  once 
hoped  to  have  worked  out  more  fully,  will  often  fur- 
nish the  student  of  Greek  history  with  the  means  of 
entering  upon  its  most  remarkable  epochs  under  his 
guidance.  Those  who  have  carefully  read  his  works, 
or  shared  his  instructions,  can  still  enjoy  the  light 
which  lie  has  thrown  on  the  rise  and  progress  of  the 
Greek  commonwealths,  and  their  analogy  with  the 
States  of  modern  Europe ;  and  apply  in  their  manifold 
relations,  the  principles  which  he  has  laid  down  with 
regard  to  the  peculiar  ideas  attached  in  the  Greek 
world  to  race,  to  citizenship,  and  to  law.  They  oan 
still  catch  the  glow  of  almost  passionate  enthusiasm, 
with  which  he  threw  himself  into  the  age  of  Pericles, 
and  the  depth  of  emotion  with  which  he  watched,  like 
an  eye-witness,  the  failure  of  the  Syracusan  expedition. 
They  can  still  trace  the  almost  personal  sympathy  with 
which  he  entered  into  the  great  crisis  of  Greek  society 
when  "  Socrates,  the  faithful  servant  of  truth  and  vir- 
tue, fell  a  victim  to  the  hatred  alike  of  the  demo- 
cratical  and  aristocratical  vulgar ; "  when,  "  all  that 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  189 

audacity  can  dare,  or  subtlety  contrive,  to  make  the 
words  of '  good  '  and  '  evil '  change  their  meaning,  was 
tried  in  the  days  of  Plato,  and  by  his  eloquence,  and 
wisdom,  and  faith  unshaken  was  put  to  shame."  They 
can  well  imagine  the  intense  admiration  with  which 
he  would  have  dwelt,  in  detail,  on  what  he  has  now 
left  only  in  faint  outline  :  —  Alexander  at  Babylon 
impressed  him  as  one  of  the  most  solemn  scenes  in  all 
history :  the  vision  of  Alexander's  career,  even  to  the 
lively  image  which  he  entertained  of  his  youthful  and 
godlike  beauty,  rose  constantly  before  him  as  the  most 
signal  instance  of  the  effects  of  a  good  education  against 
the  temptations  of  power  ; — as  being,  beyond  anything  i 
recorded  in  Roman  history,  the  career  of  "  the  greatest 
man  of  the  ancient  world  ;  "  and  even  after  the  period, 
when  Greece  ceased  to  possess  any  real  interest  for 
him,  he  loved  to  hang  with  a  melancholy  pleasure  over 
the  last  decay  of  Greek  genius  and  wisdom,  —  "the 
worn-out  and  cast-off  skin,  from  which  the  living  ser- 
pent had  gone  forth  to  carry  his  youth  and  vigor  to 
other  lands." 

But,  deep  as  was  his  interest  in  Grecian  history,  and 
though  in  some  respects  no  other  part  of  ancient  litera- 
ture derived  so  great  a  light  from  his  researches,  it  was 
to  his  History  of  Rome  that  he  looked  as  the  chief 
monument  of  his  historical  fame.  Led  to  it  partly  by 
his  personal  feeling  of  regard  towards  Niebuhr  and 
Chevalier  Bunsen,  and  by  the  sense  of  their  encourage- 
ment, there  was,  moreover,  something  in  the  subject 
itself  peculiarly  attractive  to  him,  whether  in  the  mag- 
nificence of  the  field  which  it  embraced,  —  ("  the  His- 
tory of  Rome,"  he  said,  "  must  be  in  some  sort  the 
History  of  the  World,")  — or  in  the  congenial  element 
which  he  naturally  found  in  the  character  of  a  people, 
"whose  distinguishing  quality  was  their,  love  of  insti- 
tutions and  order,  and  their  reverence  for  law."  Ac- 
cordingly, after  approaching  it  in  various  forms,  he  at 
last  conceived  the  design  of  the  work,  of  which  the 
three  published  volumes  are  the  result,  but  which  he 


190  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

had  intended  to  carry  down,  in  successive  periods,  to 
what  seemed  to  him  its  natural  termination  in  the 
coronation  of  Charlemagne.  (Pref.  vol.  i.  p.  vii.) 

The  two  earlier  volumes  occupy  a  place  in  the  His- 
tory of  Rome,  and  of  the  ancient  world  generally, 
which  in  England  had  not  and  has  not  been  otherwise 
filled  up.  Yet  in  the  subjects  of  which  they  treat,  his 
peculiar  talents  had  hardly  a  fair  field  for  their  exer- 
cise. The  want  of  personal  characters  and  of  distinct 
events,  which  Niebuhr  was  to  a  certain  extent  able  to 
supply  from  the  richness  of  his  learning  and  the  felicity 
of  his  conjectures,  was  necessarily  a  disadvantage  to 
an  historian  whose  strength  lay  in  combining  what  was 
already  known,  rather  than  in  deciphering  what  was 
unknown,  and  whose  veneration  for  his  predecessor 
made  him  distrustful  not  only  of  dissenting  from  his 
judgment,  but  even  of  seeing  or  discovering,  more, 
than  had  been  by  him  seen  or  discovered  before.  "  No 
man,"  as  he  said,  "  can  step  gracefully  or  boldly  when 
he  is  groping  his  way  in  the  dark,"  (Hist.  Rome,  i.  p. 
133,)  and  it  is  with  a  melancholy  interest  that  we  read 
his  complaint  of  the  obscurity  of  the  subject :  "  I  can 
but  encourage  myself,  whilst  painfully  feeling  my  way 
in  such  thick  darkness,  with  the  hope  of  arriving  at 
last  at  the  light,  and  enjoying  all  the  freshness  and 
fulness  of  a  detailed  contemporary  history."  (Hist. 
Rome,  ii.  p.  447.)  But  the  narrative  of  the  second 
Punic  war,  which  occupies  the  third  and  posthumous 
volume,  both  as  being  comparatively  unbroken  ground, 
and  as  affording  so  full  a  scope  for  his  talents  in  mili- 
tary and  geographical  descriptions,  may  well  be  taken 
as  a  measure  of  his  historical  powers,  and  has  been 
pronounced  by  his  editor,  Archdeacon  Hare,  to  be  the 
first  history  which  "  has  given  anything  like  an  ade- 
quate representation  of  the  wonderful  genius  and  noble 
character  of  Hannibal."  With  this  volume  the  work 
was  broken  off ;  but  it  is  impossible  not  to  dwell  for 
a  moment  on  what  it  would  have  been  had  he  lived  to 
complete  it. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  191 

The  outline  in  his  early  articles  in  the  Encyclopae- 
dia Metropolitana,  of  the  later  history  of  the  Civil 
Wars,  "  a  subject  so  glorious,"  he  writes  in  1824, 
"  that  I  groan  beforehand  when  I  think  how  certainly 
I  shall  fail  in  doing  it  justice,"  —  provokes  of  itself  the 
desire  to  see  how  he  would  have  gone  over  the  same 
ground  again  with  his  added  knowledge  and  experi- 
ence —  how  the  characters  of  the  time,  which  even  in 
this  rougli  sketch  stand  out  more  clearly  than  in  any 
other  English  work  on  the  same  period,  would  have 
been  reproduced  —  how  he  would  have  represented  the 
pure*  character  and  military  genius  of  his  favorite 
hero,  Pompey  —  or  expressed  his  mingled  admiration 
and  abhorrence  of  the  intellectual  power  and  moral 
degradation  of  Caesar ;  —  how  he  would  have  done 
justice  to  the  coarseness  and  'cruelty  of  Marius,  "  the 
lowest  of  democrats,"  —  or,  amidst  all  his  crimes,  to 
the  views  of  "  the  most  sincere  of  aristocrats,"  Sylla. 
And  in  advancing  to  the  further  times  of  the  Empire, 
his  scattered  hints  exhibit  his  strong  desire  to  reach 
those  events,  to  which  all  the  intervening  volumes 
seemed  to  him  only  a  prelude.  "  I  would  not  over- 
strain my  eyes  or  my  faculties,"  he  writes  in  1840, 
"  but  whilst  eyesight  and  strength  are  yet  undecayed, 
I  want  to  get  through  the  earlier  Roman  History,  to 
come  down  to  the  Imperial  and  Christian  times,  which 
form  a  subject  of  such  deep  interest."  What  his  gen- 
eral admiration  for  Niebuhr  was  as  a  practical  motive 


*  It  may  be  necessary,  (especially  since  the  recent  publication  of  Niebuhr's 
Lectures,  where  a  very  different  opinion  is  advocated,)  to  refer  to  Dr.  Ar- 
nold's own  estimate  of  the  moral  character  of  Pompey,  which  it  is  believed 
he  retained  unaltered,  in  the  Encyc.  Metrop.  ii.  252.  (Later  Roman  Com- 
monwealth, vol.  i.  542.)  The  following  extract  from  a  letter  of  General 
Napier  mav  not  be  without  interest  in  confirmation  of  an  opinion  which  he 
had  himseff  formed  independently  of  it.  "  Tell  Dr.  Arnold  to  beware  of  fall- 
ing into  the  error  of  Pompey  being  a  bad  general ;  he  was  a  very  great  one, 
perhaps  in  a  purely  military  sense  greater  than  Caesar."  —  At  the  same  time 
it  should  be  observed,  that  his  admiration  of  Caesar's  intellectual  greatness 
was  always  very  strong,  and  it  was  almost  with  an  indignant  animation  that, 
on  the  starting  of  an  objection  that  Caesar's  victories  were  only  gained  over 
inferior  enemies,  he  at  once  denied  the  inference,  and  instantly  recounted 
campaign  after  campaign  in  refutation. 


192  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

in  the  earlier  part  of  his  work,  that  his  deep  aversion 
to  Gibbon  as  a  man,  was  in  the  latter  part.  "  My 
highest  ambition,"  he  said,  as  early  as  1826,  "  and 
what  I  hope  to  do  as  far  as  I  can,  is  to  make  my  his- 
tory the  very  reverse  of  Gibbon  in  this  respect,  —  that 
whereas  the  'whole  spirit  of  his  work,  from  its  low 
morality,  is  hostile  to  religion,  without  speaking  di- 
rectly against  it ;  so  my  greatest  desire  would  be,  in 
my  History,  by  its  high  morals  and  its  general  tone,  to 
be  of  use  to  the  cause,  without  actually  bringing  it 
forward." 

There  would  have  been  the  place  for  his  unfolding 
the  rise  of  the  Christian  Church,  not  in  a  distinct  eccle- 
siastical history,  but  as  he  thought  it  ought  to  be  written 
in  conjunction  with  the  history  of  the  world.  "  The 
period  from  Augustus  to  Aurelian,"  he  writes,  as  far 
back  as  1824,  "  I  will  not  willingly  give  up  to  any  one, 
because  I  have  a  particular  object,  namely,  to  blend 
the  civil  and  religious  history  together  more  than  has 
ever  yet  been  done."  There  he  would,  on  the  one 
hand,  have  expressed  his  view  of  the  external  influ- 
ences, which  checked  the  free  growth  of  the  early 
Church  —  the  gradual  revival  of  Judaic  principles  un- 
der a  Christian  form  —  the  gradual  extinction  of  indi- 
vidual responsibility,  under  the  system  of  government, 
Roman  and  Gentile  in  its  origin,  which,  according  to 
his  latest  opinion,  took  possession  of  the  Church  rulers 
from  the  time  of  Cyprian.  There,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  would  have  dwelt  on  the  self-denying  zeal  and  de- 
votion to  truth,  which  peculiarly  endeared  to  him  the 
very  name  of  Martyr,  and  on  the  bond  of  Christian 
brotherhood,  which  he  delighted  to  feel  with  such  men 
as  Athanasius  and  Augustine,  discerning,  even  in  what 
he  thought  their  weaknesses,  a  signal  testimony  to  the 
triumph  of  Christianity,  unaided  by  other  means,  than 
its  intrinsic  excellence  and  holiness.  Lastly,  with  that 
analytical  method,  which  he  delighted  to  pursue  in 
his  historical  researches,  he  would  have  traced  to  their 
source,  "  those  evil  currents  of  neglect,  of  uiicharita 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  193 

bleness,  and  of  ignorance,  whose  full  streams  we  now 
find  so  pestilent,"  first,  "  in  the  social  helplessness  and 
intellectual  frivolousness  "  of  the  close  of  the  Roman 
empire  ;  and  then,  in  that  event  which  had  attracted 
his  earliest  interest,  "  the  nominal  conversion  of  the 
northern  nations  to  Christianity  —  a  vast  subject,  and 
one  of  the  greatest  importance  both  to  the  spiritual 
and  temporal  advancement  of  the  nations  of  Europe, 
(Serin,  vol.  i.  p.  88,)  as  explaining  the  more  confirmed 
separation  of  clergy  and  laity  in  later  times,  and  in  the 
incomplete  influence  which  Christianity  has  exercised 
upon  the  institutions  even  of  Christian  countries." 
(Serm.  vol.  iii.  Pref.  p.  xiv.) 

2.  Strong  as  was  his  natural  taste  for  History,  it 
was  to  Theology  that  he  looked  as  the  highest  sphere 
of  his  exertions,  and  as  the  province  which  most  need- 
ed them.  The  chief  object  which  he  here  proposed  to 
himself — in  fact,  the  object  which  he  conceived  as  the 
proper  end  of  Theology  itself —  was  the  interpretation 
and  application  of  the  Scriptures.  From  the  time  of 
his  early  studies  at  Oxford,  when  he  analyzed  and 
commented  on  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul,  with  Chrysos- 
tom's  Homilies,  down  to  the  last  year  of  his  life,  when 
he  was  endeavoring  to  set  on  foot  a  Rugby  edition  of 
them,  under  his  own  superintendence,  he  never  lost 
sight  of  this  design.  In  the  scattered  notices  of  it  in 
his  Sermons,  published  and  unpublished,  there  is 
enough  to  enable  us  to  combine  his  principles  into  a 
distinct  whole  ;  and  to  conceive  them,  not  in  the  po- 
lemical form,  which  in  his  later  years  they  sometimes 
presented  in  their  external  aspect,  but  as  the  declara- 
tion of  his  positive  views  of  the  Scriptures  themselves, 
wholly  independent  of  any  temporary  controversy  ;  and 
as  the  most  complete  reflex,  not  only  of  his  capaci- 
ties as  an  interpreter,  but  also,  on  the  one  hand,  of 
his  powers  of  historical  discernment,  on  the  other,  of 
the  reality  of  his  religious  feelings. 

Impossible  as  it  is  to  enter  here  into  any  detailed 
exposition  of  his  views,  it  has  been  felt  that  the  live- 

VOL.  i.  17  M 


194  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

liest  image  of  what  ho  was  in  this  department  will  be 
given  by  presenting  their  main  features,  as  they  were 
impressed  on  the  mind  of  the  same  earlier  pupil  and 
later  friend,  whose  name  has  before  occurred  in  these 
pages,  and  whose  personal  recollections  of  the  sphere 
in  which  he  most  admired  him,  will  probably  convey  a 
truer  and  more  distinct  conception  than  would  be  left 
by  a  representation  of  the  same  facts  in  general  lan- 
guage, or  from  a  more  distant  point  of  view. 

MY    DEAR    STANLEY, 

You  ask  me  to  describe  Dr.  Arnold  as  an  Exegetical 
Divine :  I  feel  myself  altogether  unequal  to  such  a  task ; 
indeed,  I  have  no  other  excuse  for  writing  at  all  on  such  a 
subject,  than  the  fact  that  I  early  appreciated  his  greatness 
as  a  Theologian,  and  for  many  years  had  the  happiness  of 
discussing  frequently  with  him  his  general  views  on  scientific 
Divinity.  It  was  one  of  my  earliest  convictions  respecting 
him,  that,  distinguished  as  he  was  in  many  departments  of 
literature  and  practical  philosophy,  he  was  most  distinguished 
as  an  interpreter  of  Scripture  ;  and  the  lapse  of  years  and  an 
intimate  knowledge  of  his  mind  and  character,  have  but  con- 
firmed this  conviction.  As  an  expounder  of  the  word  of  God, 
Arnold  always  has  seemed  to  me  to  be  truly  and  emphatically 
great.  I  do  not  say  this  on  account  of  the  extent  and  im- 
portance of  what  he  actually  achieved  in  this  department ; 
for,  unfortunately,  he  never  gave  himself  up  fully  to  it ;  he 
never  worked  at  it,  as  the  great  business  of  his  literary  life. 
I  shall  ever  deplorB  his  not  having  done  so ;  and  I  well  re- 
member how  sharp  was  the  struggle,  when  he  had  to  choose 
between  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  and  the  Roman  His- 
tory; and  how  the  choice  was  determined,  not  by  the  con- 
sideration of  what  his  peculiar  talent  was  most  calculated  for 
performing  successfully,  but  by  regard  to  extrinsic  matters, — 
the  prejudice  of  the  clergy  against  him,  the  unripeness  of 
England  for  a  free  and  unfettered  discussion  of  Scriptural 
Exegesis,  and  the  injury  which  he  might  be  likely  to  do  to 
his  general  usefulness.  And,  as  I  then  did  my  utmost  to  de- 
termine his  labors  to  the  field  of  Theology,  so  now  I  must 
deeply  regret  the  heavy  loss  which  I  cannot  but  think  that 
the  cause  of  sound  interpretation  —  and,  as  founded  upon 
it,  of  doctrinal  theology  —  has  sustained  in  England.  The 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  195 

amount,  then,  of  interpretation  which  he  has  published  to  the 
world,  though  not  inconsiderable,  is  still  small  in  respect  of 
what  there  remained  to  be  done  by  him ;  but  Arnold  has  fur- 
nished a  method  —  has  established  principles  and  rules  for 
interpreting  Scripture,  which,  with  God's  blessing,  will  be  the 
guide  of  many  a  future  laborer,  and  promise  to  produce  fruit 
of  inestimable  value.  In  his  writings  the  student  will  find  a 
path  opened  before  him  —  a  manner  of  handling  the  word  of 
God  —  a  pointing  out  of  the  end  to  be  held  in  view  —  and  a 
light  thrown  on  the  road  that  leads  to  it,  that  will  amply  repay 
the  deepest  meditation  on  them,  and  will  (if  I  may  say  so 
without  presumption)  furnish  results  full  of  the  richest  truth, 
and  destined  to  exercise  a  commanding  influence  on  the  con- 
duct and  determination  of  religious  controversy  hereafter. 

It  must  be  carefully  borne  in  mind,  that  there  are  two 
methods  of  reading  Scripture,  perfectly  distinct  in  their  ob- 
jects and  nature :  the  one  is  practical,  the  other  scientific ; 
the  one  aims  at  the  edification  of  the  reader,  the  other  at  the 
enlightenment  of  his  understanding ;  the  one  seeks  the  re- 
ligious truth  of  Scripture  as  bearing  on  the  inquirer's  heart 
and  personal  feelings,  the  other  the  right  comprehension  of 
the  literary  and  intellectual  portions  of  the  Bible.  That  Ar- 
nold read  and  meditated  on  the  word  of  God  as  a  disciple  of 
Christ  for  his  soul's  daily  edification  ;  that  it  was  to  him  the 
word  of  life,  the  fountain  of  his  deepest  feelings,  the  rule  of 
his  life  ;  that  he  dwelt  in  the  humblest,  most  reverential, 
most  prayerful  study  of  its  simplest  truths,  and  under  the 
abiding  influence  of  their  power,  as  they  were  assimilated 
into  his  spiritual  being  by  faith  ;  that  Arnold  felt  and  did  all 
this,  the  whole  tenor  of  his  life  and  every  page  of  your  biog- 
raphy amply  attest.  Those  who  were  most  intimate  with 
him  will  readily  recall  the  mingled  feelings  of  reverence  and 
devotion  with  which  he  would,  in  his  lonelier  hours,  repeat  to 
himself  passages  from  the  Gospels.  "  Nothing,"  he  said,  thus 
speaking  of  one  of  them  in  his  earlier  life  at  Laleham,  "  is 
more  striking  to  me  than  our  Lord's  own  description  of  the 
judgment.  It  is  so  inexpressibly  forcible,  coming  from  His 
very  own  lips,  as  descriptive  of  what  He  Himself  would  do." 
So  also  the  account  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus,  or  the  close  of 
the  eleventh  chapter  of  St.  Matthew,  "  first  touching  on  His 
greatness,  and  the  incommunicable  nature  of  His  union  with 
God  ;  and  then  directly  the  words, '  Come  unto  me,'  —  as  if 
He  must  not  for  a  moment  depart  from  the  character  of  tho 


196  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

man  of  sorrows  —  the  Saviour  and  Mediator."  So,  too,  in 
his  later  life  at  Rugby,  it  was  impossible  to  forget  the  deep 
emotion  with  which  he  was  agitated,  when,  on  a  comparison 
having  been  made  in  his  family  circle,  which  seemed  to  place 
St.  Paul  above  St.  John,  the  tears  rushed  to  his  eyes,  and  in 
his  own  earnest  and  loving  tone,  he  repeated  one  of  the  verses 
from  St.  John,  and  begged  that  the  comparison  might  never 
again  be  made.  It  would  be  easy  to  multiply  illustrations  of 
this  feeling ;  but  one  more  will  suffice.  Finding  that  one  of 
his  children  had  been  greatly  shocked  and  overcome  by  the 
first  sight  of  death,  he  tenderly  endeavored  to  remove  the 
feeling  which  had  been  awakened,  and  opening  a  Bible, 
pointed  to  the  words,  "  Then  cometh  Simon  Peter  following 
him,  and  went  into  the  sepulchre,  and  seeth  the  linen  clothes 
lie,  and  the  napkin,  that  was  about  his  head,  not  lying  with 
the  linen  clothes,  but  wrapped  together  in  a  place  by  itself." 
Nothing,  he  said,  to  his  mind,  afforded  us  such  comfort  when 
shrinking  from  the  outward  accompaniments  of  death,  —  the 
grave,  the  grave-clothes,  the  loneliness,  —  as  the  thought  that 
all  these  had  been  around  our  Lord  Himself,  round  him  who 
died,  and  is  now  alive  forevermore. 

But  I  am  here  concerned  with  the  other  and  strictly  in- 
tellectual process ;  the  scientific  exposition  of  the  Scriptures 
as  a  collection  of  ancient  books,  full  of  the  mightiest  intel- 
lectual truths ;  as  the  record  of  God's  dealings  with  man : 
and  the  historical  monument  of  the  most  wonderful  facts  in 
the  history  of  the  world.  For  the  office  of  such  an  inter- 
preter, Arnold  possessed  rare  and  eminent  qualifications ; 
learning,  piety,  judgment,  historical  tact,  sagacity.  The  ex- 
cellence of  his  method  may  be  considered  under  two  heads : — 
I.  He  had  a  very  remarkable,  I  should  rather  say  (if  I  might) 
wonderful  discernment  for  the  divine,  as  incorporated  in  the 
human  element  of  Scripture  ;  and  the  recognition  of  these 
two  separate  and  most  distinct  elements,  —  the  careful  sepa- 
ration of  the  two,  so  that  each  shall  be  subject  to  its  own  laws, 
and  determined  on  its  own  principles,  —  was  the  foundation, 
the  grand  characteristic  principle  of  his  Exegesis.  Our  Lord's 
words,  that  we  must  "  render  to  Caesar  the  things  which  are 
Caesar's,  and  to  God  the  things  which  are  God's,"  seemed  to 
him  to  be  of  universal  application,  and  nowhere  more  so,  than 
in  the  interpretation  of  Scripture.  And  his  object  was  not, 
according  to  the  usual  practice,  to  establish  by  its  means  cer- 
tain religious  truths,  but  to  study  its  contents  themselves  — • 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  197 

to  end,  in  short,  instead  of  beginning  with  doctrine.  Indeed, 
doctrine  in  the  strict  sense,  doctrine  as  pure  'religious  theory, 
such  as  it  is  exhibited  in  scientific  articles  and  creeds,  never 
was  his  object.  Doctrine,  in  its  practical  and  religious  side, 
as  bearing  on  religious  feeling  and  character,  not  doctrine,  in 
the  sense  of  a  direct  disclosure  of  spiritual  or  material  es- 
sences, as  they  are  in  themselves,  was  all  that  he  endeavored 
to  find,  and  all  that  he  believed  could  be  found,  in  the  teach- 
ing of  Scripture. 

First  of  all  he  approached  the  human  side  of  the  Bible  in 
the  same  real  historical  spirit,  with  the  same  methods,  rules, 
and  principles  as  he  did  Thucydides.  He  recognized  in  the 
writers  of  the  Scriptures  the  use  of  a  human  instrument  — 
language ;  and  this  he  would  ascertain  and  fix,  as  in  any  other 
authors,  by  the  same  philological  rules.  Further  too,  the  Bible 
presents  an  assemblage  of  historical  events,  it  announces  an 
historical  religion  ;  and  the  historical  element  Arnold  judged 
of  historically  by  the  established  rules  of  history,  substantiat- 
ing the  general  veracity  of  Scripture  even  amidst  occasional 
inaccuracies  of  detail,  and  proposing  to  himself,  for  his  special 
end  here,  the  reproduction,  in  the  language  and  forms  belong- 
ing to  our  own  age,  and  therefore  familiar  to  us,  of  the  exact 
mode  of  thinking,  feeling,  and  acting  which  prevailed  in  the 
days  gone  by. 

But  was  this  all  ?  Is  the  Bible  but  a  common  book,  record- 
ing, indeed,  more  remarkable  occurrences,  but  in  itself  pos- 
sessed of  no  higher  authority  than  a  faithful  and  trustworthy 
historian  like  Thucydides?  Nothing  could  be  further  from 
Dr.  Arnold's  feeling.  In  the  Bible,  he  found  and  acknowl- 
edged an  oracle  of  God  —  a  positive  and  supernatural  reve- 
lation made  to  man,  an  immediate  inspiration  of  the  Spirit. 
No  conviction  was  more  deeply  seated  hi  his  nature ;  and  this 
conviction  placed  an  impassable  gulf  between  him  and  all 
rationalizing  divines.  Only  it  is  very  important  to  observe 
how  this  fact,  in  respect  of  scientific  order,  presented  itself  to 
his  mind.  He  came  upon  it  historically ;  he  did  not  start  with 
any  preconceived  theory  of  inspiration ;  but  rather,  in  study- 
ing the  writings  of  those  who  were  commissioned  by  God  to 
preach  His  Gospel  to  the  world,  he  met  with  the  fact,  that 
they  claimed  to  be  sent  from  God,  to  have  a  message  from 
Him,  to  be  filled  with  His  Spirit.  Any  accurate,  precise,  and 
sharply-defined  theory  of  inspiration,  to  the  best  of  my  knowl- 
edge, Arnold  had  not ;  and,  if  he  had  been  asked  to  give  one, 
17* 


198  L1FF   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

I  think  he  would  have  answered  that  the  subject  did  not  ad- 
mit of  one.  I  think  he  would  have  been  content  to  realize 
the  feelings  of  those  who  heard  the  Apostles;  he  would  luive 
been  sure,  on  one  side,  that  there  was  a  voice  of  God  in  them ; 
whilst,  on  the  other,  he  would  have  believed  that  probably  no 
one  in  the  apostolic  age  could  have  defined  the  exact  limits  of 
that  inspiration.  And  this  I  am  sure  I  may  affirm  with  cer- 
tainty, that  never  did  a  student  feel  his  positive  faith,  his  sure 
confidence  that  the  Bible  was  the  word  of  God,  more  inde- 
structible, than  in  Arnold's  hands.  He  was  conscious  that, 
whilst  Arnold  interpreted  Scripture  as  a  scholar,  an  anti- 
quarian, and  an  historian,  and  that  in  the  spirit  and  with  the 
development  of  modern  science,  he  had  also  placed  the  super- 
natural inspiration  of  the  sacred  writers  on  an  imperishable 
historical  basis,  a  basis  that  would  be  proof  against  any  attack 
which  the  most  refined  modern  learning  could  direct  against 
it.  Those  only  who  are  fully  aware  of  the  importance  of 
harmonizing  the  progress  of  knowledge  with  Christianity,  or 
rather,  of  asserting,  amidst  every  possible  form  of  civilization, 
the  objective  truths  of  Christianity  and  its  life-giving  power, 
can  duly  appreciate  the  value  of  the  confidence  inspired  by 
the  firm  faith  of  a  man,  at  once  liberal,  unprejudiced,  and, 
in  the  estimation  of  even  the  most  worldly  men,  possessed  of 
high  historical  ability. 

II.  But  I  have  not  yet  mentioned  the  greatest  merit  of 
Arnold's  Exegesis ;  it  took  a  still  higher  range.  It  was  not 
confined  to  a  mere  reproduction  of  a  faithful  image  of  the 
words  and  deeds  recorded  in  the  Bible,  such  as  they  were 
spoken,  done,  and  understood  at  the  times  when  they  severally 
occurred.  It  was  a  great  matter  to  perceive  what  Christian- 
ity was,  such  as  it  was  felt  and  understood  to  be  by  the  hear- 
ers of  the  Apostles.  But  the  Christian  prophet  and  interpreter 
tad  in  his  eyes  a  still  more  exalted  office.  God's  dealings  with 
any  particular  generation  of  men  are  but  the  application  of 
the  eternal  truths  of  his  Providence  to  their  particular  cir- 
cumstances, and  the  form  of  that  application  has  at  different 
times  greatly  varied.  Here  it  was  that  Arnold's  most  charac- 
teristic eminence  lay.  He  seemed  to  me  to  possess  the  true 
X«p»o7ia,  the  very  spiritual  gift,  of  •yvwo-tr,  having  an  insight 
not  only  into  the  actual  form  of  the  religion  of  any  single  age, 
but  into  the  meaning  and  substance  of  God's  moral  govern- 
ment generally ;  a  vision  of  the  eternal  principles  by  which 
it  is  guided;  and  such  a  profound  understanding  of  their 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  199 

application,  as  to  be  able  to  set  forth  God's  manifold  wisdom, 
as  manifested  at  divers  times,  and  under  circumstances  of  the 
most  opposite  kind  ;  nay,  still  more,  to  reconcile  with  his  un- 
changeable attributes  those  passages  in  Holy  Writ  at  which 
infidels  had  scoffed,  and  which  pious  men  had  read  in  rever- 
ential silence.  Thus,  he  vindicated  God's  command  to  Abra- 
ham to  sacrifice  his  son,  and  to  the  Jews  to  exterminate  the 
nations  of  Canaan,  by  explaining  the  principles  on  which 
these  commands  were  given,  and  their  reference  to  the  moral 
state  of  those  to  whom  they  were  addressed ;  thereby  educing 
light  out  of  darkness,  unravelling  the  thread  of  God's  re- 
ligious education  of  the  human  race,  from  its  earliest  infancy 
down  to  the  fulness  of  times,  and  holding  up  God's  marvel- 
lous counsels  to  the  devout  wonder  and  meditation  of  the 
thoughtful  believer.  As  I  said  at  first,  Arnold  has  rather 
pointed  out  the  path  than  followed  it  to  any  extent  himself; 
the  student  will  find  in  his  writings  the  principles  of  his 
method  rather  than  its  development.  They  are  scattered, 
more  or  less,  throughout  all  his  writings,  but  more  especially 
in  the  Appendix  to  vol.  ii.  of  the  Sermons,  the  Preface  to  the 
third,  the  Notes  to  the  fourth,  and  the  Two  Sermons  on 
Prophecy.*  These  last  furnish  to  the  student  a  very  instruc- 
tive instance  of  his  method ;  for  whilst  he  will  recognize  there 
the  double  sense  of  Prophecy,  and  much  besides  that  was  held 
by  the  old  commentators,  he  will  also  perceive  how  different 
an  import  they  assume,  as  treated  by  Arnold ;  and  how  his 
wide  and  elevated  view  could  find  in  Prophecy  a  firm  founda- 
tion for  a  Christian's  hope  and  faith,  without  their  being 
coupled  with  that  extravagance  with  which  the  study  of  the 
Prophecies  has  been  so  often  united.  His  sermons,  also,  gen- 
erally exhibit  very  striking  illustrations  of  his  faculty  to  dis- 
cern general  truth  under  particular  circumstances,  and  his 
power  to  apply  it  in  a  very  altered,  nay,  often  opposite  form 
to  cases  of  a  different  nature ;  thus  making  God's  word  an 
ever-living  oracle,  furnishing  to  every  age  those  precise  rules, 
principles,  and  laws  of  conduct  which  its  actual  circumstances 
may  require. 

I  must  not  forget  to  add,  that  his  principles  of  interpreta- 
tion were  of  slow  and  matured  growth ;  he  arrived  at  them 
gradually,  and,  in  some  instances,  even  reluctantly ;  and  one 

*  To  these  may  be  added  tne  posthumous  volume  of  "  Sermons,  mostly 
9Q  Interpretation  of  Scripture." 


200  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

of  the  most  elaborate  of  his  early  sermons,  which  he  had  in- 
tended to  have  preached  before  the  University,  was  in  defence 
of  what  is  called  the  verbal  inspiration  of  Scripture.  But, 
since  I  became  acquainted  with  him,  I  have  never  known  him 
to  maintain  anything  but  what  I  have  here  tried  to  set  forth. 
It  is  very  possible  that  much  of  what  I  have  here  said  may 
appear  to  many  to  be  exaggerated ;  but  I  know  not  how  else 
to  express  adequately  my  firm  confidence  that  the  more  the 
principles  which  guided  Arnold's  interpretation  of  Scripture 
are  studied  in  his  writings,  the  more  will  their  power  to  thro\t 
light  on  the  depths  of  God's  wisdom  be  appreciated. 

Yours  ever, 

B.  PRICE. 

3.  Lastly,  his  letters  will  have  already  shown  how 
early  he  had  conceived  the  idea  of  the  work,*  to  which 
he  chiefly  looked  forward  as  that  of  his  old  age,  on 
Christian  Politics,  or  Church  and  State.  But  it  is  only 
a  wider  survey  of  his  general  views  that  will  show  how 
completely  this  was  the  centre  round  which  were  gath- 
ered not  only  all  his  writings,  but  all  his  thoughts  and 
actions  on  social  subjects,  and  which  gave  him  a  dis- 
tinct position  amongst  English  divines,  not  only  of  the 
present,  but  of  almost  all  preceding  generations.  We 
must  remember  how  the  Greek  science,  iroAmio),  of 
which  the  English  word  "  politics,"  or  even  political 
science,  is  so  inadequate  a  translation  —  society  in  its 
connection  with  the  highest  welfare  of  men  —  exhib- 
ited to  him  the  great  problem  which  every  educated 
man  was  called  upon  to  solve.  We  must  conceive 
how  lofty  were  the  aspirations  which  he  entertained  of 
what  Christianity  was  intended  to  effect,  and  what,  if 
rightly  applied,  it  might  yet  effect,  far  beyond  anything 
which  has  yet  been  seen,  or  is  ordinarily  conceived,  for 
the  moral  and  social  restoration  of  the  world.  We 
must  enter  into  the  keen  sense  of  the  startling  diffi- 


*  This  work  he  approached  at  four  different  times:  1,  in  a  sketch  drawn 
up  in  1827;  2,  in  two  fragments  in  1833,  '34;  3,  in  a  series  of  Letters  to 
Chevalier  Bunsen,  1839;  4,  in  an  historical  fragment,  1838-1841.  These 
have  all  been  since  published  in  the  "  Fragment  on  the  Church." 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  201 

culty  which  he  felt  to  be  presented  by  its  comparative 
failure.  "  The  influence  of  Christianity  no  doubt  has 
made  itself  felt  in  all  those  countries  which  have  pro- 
fessed it ;  but  ought  not  its  effects,"  he  urged,  •"  to 
have  been  far  more  perceptible  than  they  are,  now  that 
nearly  eighteen  hundred  years  have  elapsed  since  the 
kingdom  of  God  was  first  proclaimed  ?  Is  it,  in  fact, 
the  kingdom  of  God  in  which  we  are  now  living  ?  Are 
we  at  this  hour  living  under  the  law  or  under  grace  ?  " 
Everything,  in  short,  which  he  thought  or  said  on  this 
subject,  was  in  answer  to  what  he  used  to  call  "  the 
very  question  of  questions ; "  the  question  which  oc- 
curs in  the  earliest  of  all  his  works,  and  which  he  con- 
tinued to  ask  of  himself  and  of  others  as  long  as  he 
lived.  "  Why,  amongst  us  in  this  very  country,  is  the 
mighty  work  of  raising  up  God's  kingdom  stopped ; 
the  work  of  bringing  every  thought  and  word  and 
deed  to  the  obedience  of  Christ  ?  "  (Serm.  vol.  i. 
p.  115.) 

The  great  cause  of  this  hindrance  to  the  triumph  of 
Christianity,  he  believed  to  lie  (to  adopt  his  own  dis- 
tinction) in  the  corruption  not  of  the  Religion  of 
Christ,  but  of  the  Church  of  Christ.  The  former  he 
felt  had  on  the  whole  done  its  work  —  "  its  truths,"  he 
said,  "  are  to  be  sought  in  the  Scriptures  alone,  and 
are  the  same  at  all  times  and  in  all  countries."  But 
"  the  Church,  which  is  not  a  revelation  concerning  the 
eternal  and  unchangeable  God,  but  an  institution  to 
enable  changeable  man  to  apprehend  the  unchange- 
able," had,  he  maintained,  been  virtually  destroyed; 
and  thus,  "  Christianity  being  intended  to  remedy  the 
intensity  of  the  evil  of  the  Fall  by  its  Religion,  and 
the  universality  of  the  evil  by  its  Church,  has  suc- 
ceeded in  the  first,  because  its  religion  has  been  re- 
tained as  God  gave  it,  but  has  failed  in  the  second, 
because  its  Church  has  been  greatly  corrupted." 
(Serm.  vol.  iv.  Pref.  p.  xliv.) 

What  he  meant  by  this  corruption,  and  why  he 
thought  it  fatal  to  the  full  development  of  Christianity, 


202  LIFE  OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

will  best  appear  by  explaining  his  idea  of  the  Church, 
both  with  regard  to  its  true  end  and  its  true  nature. 
Its  end  he  maintained  to  be  "  the  putting  down  of 
moral  evil."  "  And  if  this  idea,"  he  asks,  "  seem 
strange  to  any  one,  let  him  consider  whether  he  will 
not  find  this  notion  of  Christianity  everywhere  promi- 
nent in  the  Scriptures,  and  whether  the  most  peculiar 
ordinances  of  the  Christian  Religion  are  not  founded 
upon  it ;  or  again,  if  it  seem  natural  to  him,  let  him 
ask  himself  whether  he  has  well  considered  the  legiti- 
mate consequences  of  such  a  definition,  and  whether, 
in  fact,  it  is  not  practically  forgotten  ?  "  Its  true 
nature  he  believed  to  be  not  an  institution  of  the 
clergy,  but  a  living  society  of  all  Christians.  "  When 
I  hear  men  talk  of  the  Church,"  he  used  to  say,  "  I 
cannot  help  recalling  how  Abbd  SiSyes  replied  to  the 
question,  '  What  is  the  Tiers  Etat  ? '  by  saying,  '  La 
nation  moins  la  noblesse  et  le  clerg6 ; '  and  so  I,  if  I 
were  asked,  What  are  the  laity  ?  would  answer,  The 
Church  minus  the  clergy."  "  This,"  he  said,  "  is  the 
view  taken  of  the  Church  in  the  New  Testament ;  can 
it  be  said  that  it  is  the  view  held  amongst  ourselves, 
and  if  not,  is  not  the  difference  incalculable  ?  "  It 
was  as  frustrating  the  union  of  all  Christians,  in  ac- 
complishing what  he  believed  to  be  the  true  end 
enjoined  by  their  common  Master,  that  he  felt  so 
strongly  against  the  desire  for  uniformity  of  opinion  or 
worship,  which  he  used  to  denounce  under  the  name 
of  sectarianism  ;  it  was  as  annihilating  what  he  be- 
lieved to  be  the  Apostolical  idea  of  a  Church,  that  he 
felt  so  strongly  against  that  principle  of  separation 
between  the  clergy  and  laity,  which  he  used  to  de- 
nounce under  the  name  of  priestcraft.  "  As  far  as 
the  principle  on  which  Archbishop  Laud  and  his  fol- 
lowers acted  went  to  reactuate  the  idea  of  the  Church, 
as  a  co-ordinate  and  living  power  by  virtue  of  Christ's 
institution  and  express  promise,  I  go  along  with  them  ; 
but  I  soon  discover  that  by  the  Church  they  meant  the 
clergy,  the  hierarchy  exclusively,  and  there  I  fly  ofi 


LIFE  OF    DR.  ARNOLD.  203 

'jrom  them  at  a  tangent.  For  it  is  this  very  interpre- 
tation of  the  Church  that,  according  to  my  conviction, 
constituted  the  first  and  fundamental  apostasy."  Such 
was  the  motto  from  Coleridge's  Remains  which  he 
selected  as  the  full  expression  of  his  own  views,  and  it 
was  as  realizing  this  idea  that  he  turned  eagerly  to  all 
institutions  which  seemed  likely  to  impress  on  all 
Christians  the  moral,  as  distinct  from  the  ceremonial, 
character  of  their  religion,  the  equal  responsibility 
and  power  which  they  possessed,  not  "  as  friends  or 
honorary  members  "  of  the  Church,  but  as  its  most 
essential  parts. 

Such  (to  make  intelligible,  by  a  few  instances,  what 
in  general  language  must  be  obscure)  was  his  desire 
to  revive  the  order  of  deacons,  as  a  link  between  the 
clergy  and  laity,  —  his  defence  of  the  union  of  laymen 
with  clerical  synods,  of  clergy  with  the  civil  legisla- 
ture, —  his  belief  that  an  authoritative  permission  to 
administer  the  Eucharist,  as  well  as  Baptism,  might 
be  beneficially  granted  to  civil  or  military  officers,  in 
congregations  where  it  was  impossible  to  procure  the 
presence  of  clergy,  —  his  wish  for  the  restoration  of 
Church  discipline,  "  which  never  can  and  never  ought 
to  be  restored,  till  the  Church  puts  an  end  to  the  usur- 
pation of  her  powers  by  the  clergy ;  and  which,  though 
it  must  be  vain  when  opposed  to  public  opinion,  yet, 
when  it  is  the  expression  of  that  opinion,  can  achieve 
anything."  (Serm.  vol.  iv.  pp.  liii.  416.)  Such  was 
his  suggestion  of  the  revival  of  many  "  good  practices, 
which  belong  to  the  true  Church  no  less  than  to  the 
corrupt  Church,  and  would  there  be  purely  beneficial ; 
daily  church  services,  frequent  communions,  memo- 
rials of  our  Christian  calling,  presented  to  our  notice 
in  crosses  and  wayside  oratories  ;  commemorations  to 
holy  men  of  all  times  and  countries  ;  the  doctrine  of 
the  communion  of  saints  practically  taught ;  religious 
orders,  especially  of  women,  of  different  kinds,  and 
under  different  rules,  delivered  only  from  the  snare 
and  sin  of  perpetual  vows."  (Serm.  vol.  iv.  Pref. 
P  Ivi.) 


204  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

A  society  organized  on  these  principles,  and  with 
such  or  similar  institutions,  was,  in  his  judgment,  the 
"  true  sign  from  heaven  "  meant  to  be  "  the  living  wit- 
ness of  the  reality  of  Christ's  salvation,  which  should 
remind  us  daily  of  God,  and  work  upon  the  habits  of 
our  life  as  insensibly  as  the  air  we  breathe,"  (Serm. 
vol.  iv.  p.  307,)  which  would  not  "  rest  satisfied  with 
the  lesser  and  imperfect  good,  which  strikes  thrice  and 
stays,"  (ibid.  Pref.  p.  liv.,)  which  would  be  "  some- 
thing truer  and  deeper  than  satisfied  not  only  the  last 
century,  but  the  last  seventeen  centuries."  (Ibid.  Pref. 
p.  liii.) 

But  it  was  almost  impossible  for  his  speculations  to 
have  stopped  short  of  the  most  tangible  shape  which 
they  assumed,  viz.  his  idea,  not  of  an  alliance  or 
union,  but  of  the  absolute  identity  of  the  Church  with 
the  State.  In  other  words,  his  belief  that  the  object  of 
the  State  and  the  Church  was  alike  the  highest  welfare 
of  man,  and  that,  as  the  State  could  not  accomplish 
this,  unless  it  acted  with  the  wisdom  and  goodness  of 
the  Church,  nor  the  Church,  unless  it  was  invested 
with  the  sovereign  power  of  the  State,  the  State  and 
the  Church  in  their  ideal  form  were  not  two  societies, 
but  one ;  and  that  it  is  only  in  proportion  as  this  iden- 
tity is  realized  in  each  particular  country  that  man's 
perfection  and  God's  glory  can  be  established  on  earth. 
This  theory  had,  indeed,  already  been  sanctioned  by 
some  of  the  greatest  names  in  English  theology  and 
philosophy,  by  Hooker  in  his  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  and 
in  later  times  by  Burke,  and  in  part  by  Coleridge. 
But  (if  a  negative  may  be  universally  asserted  on  such 
a  subject)  it  had  never  before,  at  least  in  England, 
been  so  completely  the  expression  of  a  man's  whole 
mind,  or  the  basis  of  a  whole  system,  political  as  well 
as  religious,  positive  as  well  as  negative. 

The  peculiar  line  of  his  historical  studies, — the  ad- 
miration  which  he  felt  for  the  Greek  and  Roman  com- 
monwealths,—  his  intensely  political  and  national  turn 
of  mind,  -  -  his  reverence  for  the  authority  of  law,  — 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  205 

nis  abhorrence  of  what  he  used  to  consider  the  anar- 
chical spirit  of  dissent  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  secta- 
rianism of  a  clerical  government  on  the  other  —  all 
tended  to  the  same  result.  His  detestation,  on  the 
one  hand,  of  what  he  used  to  call  the  secular  or  Jaco- 
binical notion  of  a  State,  as  providing  only  for  physical 
ends,  —  on  the  other  hand,  of  what  he  used  to  call 
the  superstitious  or  antichristian  view  of  the  Church, 
as  claiming  to  be  ruled,  not  by  national  laws,  but  by  a 
divinely-appointed  succession  of  priests  or  governors, — 
both  combined  to  make  him  look  to  the  nation  or  com- 
monwealth as  the  fit  sphere  for  the  full  realization  of 
Christianity ;  to  the  perfect  identification  of  Christian 
with  political  society,  as  the  only  mode  of  harmonizing 
the  truths  which,  in  the  opposite  systems  of  Archbishop 
Whately  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  he  lamented  to  see  "  each 
divorced  from  its  proper  mate." 

Accordingly,  no  full  development  of  the  Church,  no 
full  Christianization  of  the  State,  could  in  his  judgment 
take  place,  until  the  Church  should  have  become,  not 
a  subordinate,  but  a  sovereign  society ;  not  acting  in- 
directly on  the  world,  through  inferior  instruments, 
but  directly  through  its  own  government,  the  supreme 
legislature.  Then  at  last  all  public  officers  of  the 
State,  feeling  themselves  to  be  necessarily  officers  of  the 
Church,  would  endeavor  "  each  in  his  vocation  and 
ministry,"  to  serve  its  great  cause  "  not  with  a  subject's 
indifference,  but  with  a  citizen's  zeal."  Then  the  jeal- 
ousy, with  which  the  clergy  and  laity  at  present  regard 
each  other's  interference,  would,  as  he  hoped,  be  lost 
in  the  sense  that  their  spheres  were  in  fact  the  same  ; 
that  nothing  was  too  secular  to  claim  exemption  from 
the  enforcement  of  Christian  duty,  nothing  too  spirit- 
ual to  claim  exemption  from  the  control  of  the  govern- 
ment of  a  Christian  State.  Then  the  whole  nation, 
amidst  much  variety  of  form,  ceremonial,  and  opinion, 
would  at  last  feel  that  the  great  ends  of  Christian  and 
national  society,  now  for  the  first  time  realized  to  their 
view,  were  a  far  stronger  bond  of  union  between  Chris- 

TOL.    I.  18 


206  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

tians,  and  a  far  deeper  division  from  those  who  were 
not  Christians,  than  any  subordinate  principle  either  of 
agreement  or  separation. 

It  was  thus  only,  that  he  figured  to  himself  the  per- 
fect consummation  of  earthly  things,  —  the  triumph  of 
what  he  used  emphatically  to  call  the  Kingdom  of  God. 
Other  good  institutions,  indeed,  he  regarded  as  so 
many  steps  towards  this  end.  The  establishment  of  a 
parochial  clergy,  even  in  its  present  state,  seemed  to 
him  one  of  the  highest  national  blessings,  —  much 
more  the  revival  of  the  Church,  as  he  would  have 
wished  to  see  it  revived.  Still  the  work  of  Christianity 
itself  was  not  accomplished,  so  long  as  political  and 
social  institutions  were  exempt  from  its  influence,  so 
long  as  the  highest  power  of  human  society  professed 
to  act  on  other  principles  than  those  declared  in  the 
Gospel.  But,  whenever  it  should  come  to  pass  that 
the  strongest  earthly  bond  should  be  identical  with  the 
bond  of  Christian  fellowship,  —  that  the  highest  earthly 
power  should  avowedly  minister  to  the  advancement 
of  Christian  holiness  —  that  crimes  should  be  regarded 
as  sins  —  that  Christianity  should  be  the  acknowledged 
basis  of  citizenship,  —  that  the  region  of  political  and 
national  questions,  war  and  peace,  oaths  and  punish- 
ments, economy  and  education,  so  long  considered  by 
good  and  bad  alike  as  worldly  and  profane,  should  be 
looked  upon  as  the  very  sphere  to  which  Christian  prin- 
ciples are  most  applicable,  —  then  he  felt  that  Chris- 
tianity would  at  last  have  gained  a  position,  where  it 
could  cope  for  the  first  time,  front  to  front,  with  the 
power  of  evil ;  that  the  unfulfilled  promises  of  the  older 
prophecies,  so  long  delayed,  would  have  received  their 
accomplishment ;  that  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  would 
have  indeed  becpme  the  kingdoms  of  the  Lord  and  of 
his  Christ. 

No  one  felt  more  keenly  than  himself  how  impossible 
It  was  to  apply  this  view  directly  to  existing  circum- 
stances ;  how  the  whole  framework  of  society  must  be 
reconstructed  before  it  could  be  brought  into  action ; 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  207 

how  far  in  the  remote  future  its  accomplishment  must 
necessarily  lie.  "  So  deeply,"  he  said,  "  is  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  Church  and  the  State  seated  in  our 
laws,  our  language,  and  our  very  notions,  that  noth- 
ing less  than  a  miraculous  interposition  of  God's  Prov- 
idence seems  capable  within  any  definite  time  of  erad- 
icating it."  * 

Still,  it  was  not  in  his  nature  to  postpone,  even  in 
thought,  the  fulfilment  of  his  desires  to  a  remote  Mil- 
lennium or  Utopia,  such  as  in  the  minds  of  many  men 
acts  rather  as  a  reason  for  acquiescence  in  the  existing 
order  of  the  world,  than  as  a  motive  for  rising  above 
it.  The  wisdom  of  Hesiod's  famous  paradox,  "  He  is 
a  fool  who  does  not  know  how  much  the  half  is  better 
than  the  whole,"  was  often  in  his  mouth ;  in  answer 
t6  the  frequent  allegation  that  because  the  complete 
fulfilment  of  the  theory  was  impracticable,  therefore 
no  part  of  it  could  be  made  available.  "  I  cannot 
answer  all  your  objections  fully,"  he  writes  to  Arch- 
bishop Whately,  "  because  if  I  could,  it  were  to  sup- 
pose that  the  hardest  of  all  human  questions  contained 
no  great  difficulties ;  but  I  think  on  the  whole,  that 
the  objections  to  my  scheme  are  less  than  to  any  other, 
and  that  on  the  positive  side  it  is  in  theory  perfect : 
and  though  it  never  will  be  wholly  realized,  yet  if  men 
can  be  brought  to  look  at  it  as  the  true  theory,  the 
practical  approximations  to  it  may  in  the  course  of 
time  be  indefinitely  great." 

It  was  still  the  thought  which  animated  all  his 
exertions  in  behalf  of  his  country,  where  he  felt  that 
"  the  means  were  still  in  our  hands,  which  it  seems 
far  better  to  use  even  at  the  eleventh  hour,  than  des- 
perately to  throw  them  away."  f  And,  convinced  as 
he  was,  that  the  founders  of  our  present  constitution 
in  Church  and  State  did  "  truly  consider  them  to  be 
identical,  the  Christian  nation  of  England  to  be  the 
Church  of  England,  the  head  of  that  nation  to  be  for 

*  Pref.  to  Hist,  of  Rome,  vol.  i.  p.  ix.  f  Senn.  vol.  ii.  Pref.  p.  vi 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

that  very  reason  the  head  of  the  Church,"  he  asked 
with  an  indignant  sorrow,  "  whether  it  were  indeed 
indifference  or  latitudinarianism,  to  wish  most  de- 
voutly that  this  nohle,  this  divine  theory  might  be 
fully  and  forever  realized."  *  It  was  still  the  vision 
which  closed  the  vista  of  all  his  speculations ;  tho 
ideal  whole,  .which  might  be  incorporated  part  by  part 
into  the  existing  order  of  society ;  the  ideal  end  which 
each  successive  age  might  approacli  more  closely,— 
its  very  remoteness  only  impressing  him  more  deeply 
with  the  conviction  of  the  enormous  efforts  which 
must  be  made  to  bring  all  social  institutions  nearer  to 
that  perfection  which  Christianity  designed  for  them, 
of  the  enormous  mass  of  evil  which  lay  undisturbed 
because  so  few  dared  to  acknowledge  the  identity  of 
the  cause  of  reform  with  the  cause  of  Christianity. 
It  was  still,  in  its  more  practical  form,  the  great  idea 
of  which  the  several  parts  of  his  life  were  so  many  dis- 
tinct exemplifications ;  his  sermons  —  his  teaching  — 
his  government  of  the  school  —  his  public  acts  —  his 
own  personal  character ;  and  to  which  all  his  dreams 
of  wider  usefulness  instinctively  turned,  from  the  first 
faint  outline  of  his  hopes  in  his  earliest  letters  down 
to  the  last  evening  of  his  life,  when  the  last  thought 
which  he  bestowed  on  the  future,  was  of  "  that  great 
work,  if  he  might  be  permitted  to  take  part  in  it." 


The  general  view  of  Dr.  Arnold's  life  at  Rugby 
must  not  be  closed,  without  touching,  however  briefly 
and  imperfectly,  on  that  aspect  of  it  which  naturally 
gave  the  truest  view  of  his  mind  and  character,  whilst 
to  those  at  a  distance  it  was  comparatively  but  little 
known. 

Perhaps  the  scene  which,  to  those  who  knew  him 
best,  would  bring  together  the  recollections  of  his 
public  and  private  life  in  the  most  lively  way,  was 

*  Church  Reform,  Postscript,  p.  24.    Misc.  Works,  p.  335. 


LIFE   OF   DE.   ARNOLD.  209 

his  study  at  Rugby.  There  he  sat  at  his  work,  with 
no  attempt  at  seclusion,  conversation  going  on  around 
him  —  his  children  playing  in  the  room  —  his  frequent 
guests,  whether  friends  or  former  pupils,  coming  in  or 
out  at  will  —  ready  at  once  to  break  off  his  occupa- 
tions to  answer  a  question,  or  to  attend  to  the  many 
interruptions  to  which  he  was  liable ;  and  from  these 
interruptions,  or  from  his  regular  avocations,  at  the 
few  odd  hours  or  minutes  which  he  could  command, 
would  he  there  return  and  recommence  his  writing,  as 
if  it  had  not  been  broken  off.  "  Instead  of  feeling  my 
head  exhausted,"  he  would  sometimes  say  after  the 
day's  business  was  over,  "  it  seems  to  have  quite  an 
eagerness  to  set  to  work."  "  I  feel  as  if  I  could  dic- 
tate to  twenty  secretaries  at  once."  "  Unhasting,  un- 
resting diligence,"  was  the  strong  impression  which  a 
one  day's  visit  at  Rugby  left  on  one  of  the  keenest 
observers  amongst  English  authors  —  and  he  was  one 
of  a  class,  who,  however  engaged,  whether  in  business, 
in  writing,  or  in  travelling,  was  emphatically  never  in 
a  hurry. 

Still  he  would  often  wish  for  something  more  like 
leisure  and  repose.  "  We  sometimes  feel,"  he  said, 
"as  if  we  should  like  to  run  our  heads  into  a  hole  — 
to  be  quiet  for  a  little  time  from  the  stir  of  so  many 
human  beings  which  greets  us  from  morning  to  even- 
ing." And  it  was  from  amidst  this  chaos  of  employ- 
ments that  he  turned,  with  all  the  delight  of  which  his 
nature  was  capable,  to  what  he  often  dwelt  upon  as 
the  rare,  the  unbroken,  the  almost  awful  happiness  of 
his  domestic  life.  It  is  impossible  adequately  to  de- 
scribe the  union  of  the  whole  family  round  him,  who 
was  not  only  the  father  and  guide,  but  the  elder 
brother  and  playfellow  of  his  children ;  the  first  feel- 
ings of  enthusiastic  love  and  watchful  care,  carried 
through  twenty-two  years  of  wedded  life,  - —  the  gen- 
tleness and  devotion  which  marked  his  whole  feeling 
and  manner  in  the  privacy  of  his  domestic  intercourse. 
Those  who  had  known  him  only  in  the  school,  can 

18*  X 


210  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

remember  the  kind  of  surprise  with  which  they  first 
witnessed  his  tenderness  and  playfulness.  Those  who 
had  known  him  only  in  the  bosom  of  his  family,  found 
it  difficult  to  conceive  how  his  pupils  or  the  world  at 
large  should  have  formed  to  themselves  so  stern  an 
image  of  one  in  himself  so  loving.  Yet  both  were 
alike  natural  to  him  ;  the  severity  and  the  playfulness 
expressing  each  in  their  turn  the  earnestness  with 
which  he  entered  into  the  business  of  life,  and  the 
enjoyment  with  which  he  entered  into  its  rest ;  whilst 
the  common  principle,  which  linked  both  together, 
made  every  closer  approach  to  him  in  his  private  life 
a  means  for  better  understanding  him  in  his  public 
relations. 

Enough,  however,  may  perhaps  be  said  to  recall 
something  at  least  of  its  outward  aspect.  There  were 
his  hours  of  thorough  relaxation,  when  he  would  throw 
off  all  thoughts  of  the  school  and  of  public  matters  — 
his  quiet  walks  by  the  side  of  his  wife's  pony,  when  he 
would  enter  into  the  full  enjoyment  of  air  and  exer- 
cise, and  the  outward  face  of  nature,  observing  with 
distinct  pleasure  each  symptom  of  the  burst  of  spring 
or  of  the  richness  of  summer  —  "  feeling  like  a  horse 
pawing  the  ground,  impatient  to  be  off,"  -  —  "  as  if  the 
very  act  of  existence  was  an  hourly  pleasure  to  him." 
There  was  the  cheerful  voice  that  used  to  go  sounding 
through  the  house  in  the  early  morning,  as  he  went 
round  to  call  his  children  ;  the  new  spirits  which  he 
seemed  to  gather  from  the  mere  glimpses  of  them  in 
the  midst  of  his  occupations  —  the  increased  merri- 
ment of  all  in  any  game  in  which  he  joined  —  the 
happy  walks  on  which  he  would  take  them  in  the 
fields  and  hedges,  hunting  for  flowers  —  the  yearly 
excursion  to  look  in  the  neighboring  clay-pit  for  the 
earliest  coltsfoot,  with  the  mock  siege  that  followed. 
Nor,  again,  was  the  sense  of  his  authority  as  a  father 
ever  lost  in  his  playfulness  as  a  companion.  His  per- 
sonal superintendence  of  their  ordinary  instructions 
was  necessarily  limited  by  his  other  engagements,  but 


LIFE   OF   DR    ARNOLD.  211 

it  was  never  wholly  laid  aside  ;  in  the  later  years  of 
his  life  it  was  his  custom  to  read  the  Psalms  and  Les- 
sons of  the  day  with  his  family  every  morning ;  and 
the  common  reading  of  a  chapter  in  the  Bible  every 
Sunday  evening,  with  repetition  of  hymns  or  parts  of 
Scripture  by  every  member  of  the  family  —  the  devo- 
tion with  which  he  would  himself  repeat  his  favorite 
poems  from  the  Christian  Year,  or  his  favorite  pas- 
sages from  the  Gospels  —  the  same  attitude  of  deep 
attention  in  listening  to  the  questions  of  his  youngest 
children,  the  same  reverence  in  answering  their  diffi- 
culties that  he  would  have  shown  to  the  most  advanced 
of  his  friends  or  his  scholars  —  form  a  picture  not 
soon  to  pass  away  from  the  mind  of  any  one  who  was 
ever  present.  But  his  teaching  in  his  family  was  nat- 
urally not  confined  to  any  particular  occasions  ;  they 
looked  to  him  for  information  and  advice  at  all  times ; 
and  a  word  of  authority  from  him  was  a  law  not  to  be 
questioned  for  a  moment.  And  with  the  tenderness 
which  seemed  to  be  alive  to  all  their  wants  and  wishes, 
there  was  united  that  peculiar  sense  of  solemnity,  with 
which  in  his  eyes  the  very  idea  of  a  family  life  was 
invested.  "  I  do  not  wonder,"  he  said,  "  that  it  was 
thought  a  great  misfortune  to  die  childless  in  old 
times,  when  they  had  not  fuller  light  —  it  seems  so 
completely  wiping  a  man  out  of  existence."  The 
anniversaries  of  domestic  events  —  the  passing  away 
of  successive  generations  —  the  entrance  of  his  sons 
on  the  several  stages  of  their  education,  —  struck  on 
the  deepest  chords  of  his  nature,  and  made  him  blend 
with  every  prospect  of  the  future,  the  keen  sense  of 
the  continuance  (so  to  speak)  of  his  own  existence 
in  the  good  and  evil  fortunes  of  his  children,  and  to 
unite  the  thought  of  them  with  the  yet  more  solemn 
feeling,  with  which  he  was  at  all  times  wont  to  regard 
"  the  blessing  "  of  "  a  whole  house  transplanted  entire 
from  earth  to  heaven,  without  one  failure." 

In  his  own  domestic  happiness  he  never  lost  sight  of 
his  early  friends.     "  He  was  attached  to  his  family,"  it 


212  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

was  truly  said  of  him  by  Archbishop  Whately,  "  as  if 
he  had  no  friends  ;  to  his  friends,  as  if  he  had  no  fam- 
ily ;  and,"  he  adds,  "  to  his  country  as  if  he  had  no 
friends  or  relations."  Debarred  as  he  was  from  fre- 
quent intercourse  with  most  of  them  by  his  and  their 
occupations,  he  made  it  part  of  the  regular  business  of 
his  life  to  keep  up  a  correspondence  with  them.  "  I 
never  do,"  he  said,  "  and  I  trust  I  never  shall  excuse  my- 
self for  not  writing  to  old  and  dear  friends,  for  it  is  really 
a  duty  which  it  is  mere  indolence  and  thoughtlessness  to 
neglect."  The  very  aspect  of  their  several  homes  lived  as 
distinct  images  in  his  mind,  and  seemed  to  have  an  equal 
claim  on  his  interest.  To  men  of  such  variety  of  opin- 
ion and  character,  that  the  very  names  of  some  of  them 
are  identified  with  measures  and  views  the  most  oppo- 
site that  good  men  can  entertain,  he  retained  to  the  end 
a  strong  and  almost  equal  affection.  The  absence  of 
greater  mutual  sympathy  was  to  him  almost  the  only 
shadow  thrown  over  his  happy  life  ;  no  difference  of 
opinion  ever  destroyed  his  desire  for  intercourse  with 
them ;  and  where,  in  spite  of  his  own  efforts  to  con- 
tinue it,  it  was  so  interrupted,  the  subject  was  so  pain- 
ful to  him,  that  even  with  those  most  intimate  with 
him,  he  could  hardly  bear  to  allude  to  it. 

How  lively  was  his  interest  in  the  state  of  England 
generally,  and  especially  of  the  lower  orders,  will  ap- 
pear elsewhere.  But  the  picture  of  his  ordinary  life 
would  be  incomplete  without  mention  of  his  inter- 
course with  the  poor.  He  purposely  abstained,  as  will 
be  seen,  from  mixing  much  in  the  affairs  of  the  town 
and  neighborhood  of  Rugby.  But  he  was  always  ready 
to  assist  in  matters  of  local  charity  or  usefulness,  giv- 
ing lectures,  for  example,  before  the  Mechanic's  Insti- 
tutes at  Rugby  and  Lutterworth,  writing  tracts  on  the 
appearance  of  the  cholera  in  the  vicinity,  and,  after  the 
establishment  of  the  railway  station  at  half  a  mile  from 
the  town,  procuring  the  sanction  of  the  Bishop  for  the 
performance  of  a  short  service  there  on  Sundays  by 
himself  and  the  assistant  masters  in  turn.  In  preach- 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  213 

ing  to  parochial  congregations,  as  he  did  occasionally 
at  Rugby  and  at  Rydal,  he  always,  he  said,  found  a 
difficulty  from  "  the  consideration,*  not  only  of  what 
was  fit  for  them  to  hear,  but  also  fit  for  him  to  say,"  — 
and  accordingly  they  were  usually  on  "  some  particu- 
lar point  not  of  the  very  deepest  character,  but  yet  im- 
portant and  capable  of  being  sufficiently  discussed  at 
one  time,"  such  as  that  on  "  Christian  Conviction," 
preached  at  Carfax  Church  in  Oxford,  or  on  Wills,  at 
Rydal,  or  again,  on  some  of  the  great  social  questions 
which  concerned  the  country  generally,  such  as  those 
published  at  the  close  of  the  second  volume,  preached 
in  1831.  At  other  times,  however,  both  at  Rugby  and 
in  Westmoreland,  and  always  at  the  above-mentioned 
service  at  the  railway  station,  his  addresses  were 
spoken  and  not  written,  and  rather  after  the  manner 
of  one  talking  seriously  to  his  neighbors,  or  explaining 
parts  of  Scripture  which  occurred  in  the  service,  than 
would  be  commonly  called  preaching.  His  style  seems 
to  have  been  too  simple  to  be  generally  popular 
amongst  the  poorer  classes  ;  but  cases  often  occurred 
of  its  having  made  a  deep  impression.  A  passing  trav- 
eller, shortly  after  his  death,  was  struck  with  the  un- 
feigned regret  expressed  by  the  men  at  the  railway 
station  for  the  loss  of  his  visits  to  them,  —  and  at  Har- 
row, where  he  once  spent  a  Sunday  with  Dr.  Longley, 
there  were  found  amongst  the  few  papers  of  a  poor 
servant-maid,  who  died  some  time  afterwards,  notes  of 
a  sermon  which  he  preached  there  in  the  parish  church, 
and  to  which  she  was  known  to  have  recurred  fre- 
quently afterwards. 

The  poor  of  the  place,  as  might  be  expected,  shared 
largely  in  that  liberality  which  marked  both  his  public 
and  his  private  dealings,  and  which,  in  fact,  from  the 
impression  it  made  on  the  naturally  suspicious  senses 
of  boys,  ought  not  to  be  overlooked  ;  even  in  the  man- 
agement of  the  school  his  direct  intercourse  with  the 

*  Serm.  v.  31. 


214  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

poor  was,  of  course,  much  more  limited  than  it  had 
been  in  the  village  of  Laleham  ;  yet  with  some  few, 
chiefly  aged  persons  in  the  almshouses  of  the  town,  he 
made  a  point  of  keeping  up  a  frequent  and  familiar 
acquaintance.  In  this  intercourse,  sometimes  in  con- 
versations with  them  as  he  met  or  overtook  them  alone 
on  the  road,  usually  in  such  visits  as  he  could  pay  to 
them  in  his  spare  moments  of  relaxation,  he  assumed 
less  of  the  character  of  a  teacher  than  most  clergymen 
would  have  thought  right,  reading  to  them  occasion- 
ally, but  generally  talking  to  them  with  the  manner  of 
a  friend  and  an  equal.  This  resulted  partly  from  the 
natural  reserve  and  shyness  which  made  him  shrink 
from  entering  on  sacred  subjects  with  comparative 
strangers,  and  which,  though  he  latterly  somewhat 
overcame  it,  almost  disqualified  him,  in  his  own  judg- 
ment, from  taking  charge  of  a  parish.  But  it  was  also 
the  effect  of  his  reluctance  to  address  them  in  a  more 
authoritative  or  professional  tone  than  he  would  have 
used  towards  persons  of  his  own  rank.  Feeling  keenly 
what  seemed  to  him  at  once  the  wrong  and  the  mis- 
chief done  by  the  too  wide  separation  between  the 
higher  and  lower  orders,  he  wished  to  visit  them  "  as 
neighbors,  without  always  seeming  bent  on  relieving 
or  instructing  them ;  "  *  and  could  not  bear  to  use 
language  which  to  any  one  in  a  higher  station  would 
have  been  thought  an  interference.  With  the  servants 
of  his  household,  for  the  same  reasons,  he  was  in 
the  habit,  whether  in  travelling  or  in  his  own  house,  of 
consulting  their  accommodation  and  speaking  to  them 
familiarly  as  to  so  many  members  of  the  domestic  cir- 
cle. And  in  all  this,  writes  one  who  knew  well  his 
manner  to  the  poor,  "  there  was  no  affectation  of  con- 
descension ;  it  was  a  manly  address  to  his  fellow-men, 
as  man  addressing  man."  "  I  never  knew  such  a 
humble  man  as  the  Doctor,"  said  the  parish  clerk  at 
Laleham,  after  he  had  revisited  it  from  Rugby  ;  "  he 

*  Sermons,  vol.  ii.  p.  411. 


LIFE    OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  215 

comes  and  shakes  us  by  tho  hand  as  if  he  was  one  of 
us."  "  He  used  to  come  into  my  house,"  said  an  old 
woman  near  his  place  in  Westmoreland,  "  and  talk  to 
me  as  if  I  was  a  lady."  Often,  no  doubt,  this  was  not 
appreciated  by  the  poor,  and  might,  at  times,  be  em- 
barrassing to  himself,  and  it  is  said  that  he  was  liable 
to  be  imposed  upon  by  them,  and  greatly  to  overrate 
their  proficiency  in  moral  and  religious  excellence. 
But  he  felt  this  intercourse  to  be  peculiarly  needful 
for  one  engaged  in  occupations  such  as  his ;  to  the  re- 
membrance of  the  good  poor,  whom  he"  visited  at  Rug- 
by, he  often  recurred  when  absent  from  them ;  and 
nothing  can  exceed  the  regret  which  they  testify  at  his 
loss,  and  the  grateful  affection  with  which  they  still 
speak  of  him,  pointing  with  delight  to  the  seat  which 
he  used  to  occupy  by  their  firesides  :  one  of  them  es- 
pecially, an  old  almswoman,  who  died  a  few  months 
after  his  own  decease,  up  to  the  last  moment  of  con- 
sciousness never  ceasing  to  think  of  his  visits  to  her, 
and  of  the  hope  with  which  she  looked  forward  now 
to  seeing  his  face  once  more  again. 

Closely  as  he  was  bound  to  Rugby  by  these  and  simi- 
lar bonds  of  social  and  familiar  life,  and  yet  more 
closely  by  the  charm  with  which  its  mere  outward 
aspect  and  localities  were  invested  by  his  interest  in  the 
school,  both  as  an  independent  institution  and  as  his 
own  sphere  of  duty,  yet  the  place  in  itself  never  had 
the  same  strong  hold  on  his  affections  as  Oxford  or 
Laleham,  and  his  holidays  were  almost  always  spent 
away  from  Rugby,  either  in  short  tours,  or  in  later 
years  at  his  Westmoreland  home,  Fox  How,  a  small 
estate  between  Rydal  and  Ambleside,  which  lie  pur- 
chased in  1832,  with  the  view  of  providing  for  himself 
a  retreat,  in  case  of  his  retirement  from  the  school,  or 
for  his  family  in  case  of  his  death.  The  monotonous 
character  of  the  midland  scenery  of  Warwickshire  was 
to  him,  with  his  strong  love  of  natural  beauty  and 
variety,  absolutely  repulsive ;  there  was  something 
almost  touching  in  the  eagerness  with  which,  amidst 


216  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

that  "  endless  succession  of  fields  and  hedgerows,"  he 
would  make  the  most  of  any  features  of  a  higher  or- 
der ;  in  the  pleasure  with  which  he  would  cherish  the 
few  places  where  the  current  of  the  Avon  was  percep- 
tible, or  where  a  glimpse  of  the  horizon  could  be  dis- 
cerned ;  in  the  humorous  despair  with  which  he  would 
gaze  on  the  dull  expanse  of  fields  eastward  from  Rug- 
by. "  It  is  no  wonder  we  do  not  like  looking  that 
way,  when  one  considers  that  there  is  nothing  fine  be- 
tween us  and  the  Ural  Mountains.  Conceive  what 
you  look  over,  for  you  just  miss  Sweden,  and  look  over 
Holland,  the  north  of  Germany,  and  the  centre  of 
Russia."  With  this  absence  of  local  attraction  in  the 
place,  and  with  the  conviction  that  his  occupations  and 
official  station  must  make  him  look  for  his  future  home 
elsewhere,  "  I  feel,"  he  said,  "  that  I  love  Middlesex 
and  Westmoreland,  but  I  care  nothing  for  Warwick- 
shire, and  am  in  it  like  a  plant  sunk  in  the  ground  in 
a  pot ;  my  roots  never  strike  beyond  the  pot,  and  I 
could  be  transplanted  at  any  minute  without  tearing 
or  severing  of  my  fibres.  To  the  pot  itself,  which  is 
the  school,  I  could  cling  very  lovingly,  were  it  not  that 
the  laborious  nature  of  the  employment  makes  me  feel 
that  it  can  be  only  temporary,  and  that,  if  I  live  to 
old  age,  my  age  could  not  be  spent  in  my  present  situ- 
ation. 

Fox  How  accordingly  became  more  and  more  the 
centre  of  all  his  local  and  domestic  affections.  "  It  is 
with  a  mixed  feeling  of  solemnity  and  tenderness,"  he 
said,  "  that  I  regard  our  mountain  nest,  whose  surpass- 
ing sweetness,  I  think  I  may  safely  say,  adds  a  positive 
happiness  to  every  one  of  my  waking  hours  passed  in 
it."  "  When  absent  from  it,"  it  still,  he  said,  "  dwelt  in 
his  memory  as  a  vision  of  beauty  from  one  vacation  to 
another,"  and  when  present  at  it  he  felt  that  "no  hasty 
or  excited  admiration  of  a  tourist  could  be  compared 
with  the  quiet  and  hourly  delight  of  having  the  moun- 
tains and  streams  as  familiar  objects,  connected  with 
all  the  enjoyments  of  home,  one's  family,  one's  books, 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  217 

and  one's  friends,"  —  "associated  with  our  work-day 
thoughts  as  well  as  our  gala-day  ones." 

Then  it  was  that,  as  he  sat  working  in  the  midst  of 
his  family,  "  never  raising  his  eyes  from  the  paper  to 
the  window  without  an  influx  of  ever-new  delights," 
he  found  that  leisure  for  writing,  which  he  so  much 
craved  at  Rugby.  Then  it  was  that  he  enjoyed  the 
entire  relaxation,  which  he  so  much  needed  after  his 
school  occupations,  whether  in  the  journeys  of  coming 
and  returning,  those  long  journeys,  which,  before  they 
were  shortened  by  railway  travelling,  were  to  him,  he 
used  to  say,  the  twelve  most  restful  days  of  the  whole 
year ;  —  or  in  the  birthday  festivities  of  his  children, 
and  the  cheerful  evenings  when  all  subjects  were  dis- 
cussed, from  the  gravest  to  the  lightest,  and  when  he 
would  read  to  them  his  favorite  stories  from  Herodo- 
tus, or  his  favorite  English  poets.  Most  of  all,  perhaps, 
was  to  be  observed  his  delight  in  those  long  mountain 
walks,  when  they  would  start  with  their  provisions  for 
the  day,  himself  the  guide  and  life  of  the  party,  always 
on  the  look-out  how  best  to  break  the  ascent  by  gentle 
stages,  comforting  the  little  ones  in  their  falls,  and 
helping  forward  those  who  were  tired,  himself  always 
keeping  with  the  laggers,  that  none  might  strain  their 
strength  by  trying  to  be  in  front  with  him, — and  then, 
when  his  assistance  was  not  wanted,  the  liveliest  of  all ; 
his  step  so  light,  his  eye  so  quick  in  finding  flowers  to 
take  home  to  those  who  were  not  of  the  party. 

Year  by  year  bound  him  with  closer  ties  to  his  new 
home ;  not  only  Fox  How  itself  with  each  particular 
tree,  the  growth  of  which  he  had  watched,  and  each 
particular  spot  in  the  grounds,  associated  by  him  with 
the  playful  names  of  his  nine  children  ;  but  also  the 
whole  valley  in  which  it  lay  became  consecrated  with 
something  of  a  domestic  feeling.  Rydal  Chapel,  with 
the  congregation  to  which  he  had  so  often  preached  — 
the  new  circle  of  friends  and  acquaintance  with  whom 
he  kept  up  so  familiar  an  intercourse  —  the  gorges  and 
rocky  pools  which  in  many  instances  owed  their  no- 

VOL.    I.  19 


218  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

menclature  to  him,  all  became  part  of  his  habit  mil 
thoughts.  He  delighted  to  derive  his  imagery  from 
the  hills  and  lakes  of  Westmoreland,  and  to  trace  in 
them  the  likenesses  of  his  favorite  scenes  in  poetry  and 
history  ;  even  their  minutest  features  were  of  a  kind 
that  were  most  attractive  to  him  ;  "  the  running 
streams,"  which  were  to  him  "  the  most  beautiful  ob- 
jects in  nature  ; "  —  the  wild  flowers  on  the  mountain 
sides,  which  were  to  him,  he  said,  "  his  music  ;  "  and 
which,  whether  in  their  scarcity  at  Rugby,  or  their 
profusion  in  Westmoreland,  "  loving  them,"  as  he  used 
to  say,  "  as  a  child  loves  them,"  he  could  not  bear  to 
see  removed  from  their  natural  places  by  the  wayside, 
where  others  might  enjoy  them  as  well  as  himself. 
The  very  peacefulness  of  all  the  historical  and  moral 
associations  of  the  scenery  —  free  alike  from  the  re- 
mains of  feudal  ages  in  the  past,  and  suggesting  com- 
paratively so  little  of  suffering  or  of  evil  in  the  present, 
—  rendered  doubly  grateful  to  him  the  refreshment 
which  he  there  found  from  the  rough  world  in  the 
school,  or  the  sad  feelings  awakened  in  his  mind  by 
the  thoughts  of  his  Church  and  country.  There  he 
hoped,  when  the  time  should  have  come  for  his  retreat 
from  Rugby,  to  spend  his  declining  years.  Other 
visions,  indeed,  of  a  more  practical  and  laborious  life, 
from  time  to  time  passed  before  him,  but  Fox  How 
was  the  image,  which  most  constantly  presented  itself 
to  him  in  all  prospects  for  the  future  ;  there  he  in- 
tended to  have  lived  in  peace,  maintaining  his  connec- 
tion with  the  rising  generation  by  receiving  pupils  from 
the  Universities  ;  there,  under  the  shade  of  the  trees 
of  his  own  planting,  he  hoped  in  his  old  age  to  give  to 
the  world  the  fruits  of  his  former  experience  and  la- 
bors, by  executing  those  works  for  which  at  Rugby 
he  felt  himself  able  only  to  prepare  the  way,  or  lay  the 
first  foundations,  and  never  again  leave  his  retirement 
till  (to  use  his  own  expression)  "  his  bones  should  go 
to  Grasmere  churchyard,  to  lie  under  the  yews  which 
Wordsworth  planted,  and  to  have  the  Rotha  with  its 
deep  and  silent  pools  passing  by." 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  21 9 

CHAPTER    V. 

LIFE  AND  CORRESPONDENCE,  AUGUST,  1828,  TO  AUGUST,  1830. 

THE  first  two  years  of  Dr.  Arnold's  life  at  Rugby 
remarkably  exhibit  the  natural  sanguineness  of  his 
character,  whether  in  the  feeling  with  which  he  en- 
tered on  the  business  of  the  school,  or  in  the  hopeful- 
ness with  which  he  regarded  public  affairs,  and  which, 
more  or  less,  pervaded  all  that  he  wrote  at  this  time. 

The  first  volume  of  sermons,  and  the  first  volume  of 
his  edition  of  Thucydides,  containing,  as  they  did  in 
many  respects,  the  basis  of  his  theological  and  histori- 
cal views,  were  published  in  February,  1829,  and  May, 
1830 ;  and  little  need  be  added  to  what  has  already 
been  said  of  them.  To  the  latter,  indeed,  an  addi- 
tional interest  is  imparted  from  its  being  the  first 
attempt  in  English  philology  to  investigate  not  merely 
the  phrases  and  formulae,  but  the  general  principles 
of  the  Greek  language,  and  to  illustrate  not  merely 
the  words,  but  the  history  and  geography  of  a  Greek 
historian.  And  in  the  Essay  on  the  different  periods 
of  national  existence  appended  to  this  first  volume, 
but,  in  fact,  belonging  more  to  his  general  views  of 
history  and  politics  than  to  any  particular  illustration 
of  Thucydides,  is  brought  out,  more  forcibly  than  in 
any  other  of  his  writings,  his  belief  in  the  progress 
and  inherent  excellence  of  popular  principles ;  in  the 
distinct  stages  of  civilization  through  which  nations 
have  to  pass  ;  and  in  the  philosophical  divisions  of 
ancient  and  modern  history,  of  which  he  made  so 
much  use  in  treating  of  either  of  them.  But  the 
work  which  naturally  excited  most  public  attention 
was  a  pamphlet  on  "  the  Christian  Duty  of  Conceding 
the  Claims  of  the  Roman  Catholics,"  published  in 
February,  1829.  To  those  who  knew  him  in  later  life, 


220  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

it  may  appear  strange  that  he  should  have  treated  at 
length  of  the  question  of  Ireland,  which  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  shun  as  a  problem  of  inextricable  difficulty, 
and  on  which  nothing  but  a  sense  of  justice  could  ever 
prevail  upon  him  to  enter.  But  this  sense  of  justice 
was,  at  this  time,  quickened  by  the  deep  conviction 
which,  for  some  years  past,  he  had  entertained  of  the 
alarming  state  of  the  Irish  nation.  "  There  is  more 
to  be  done  there,"  he  writes,  in  1828,  from  Laleham, 
"  than  in  any  corner  of  the  world.  I  had,  at  one  time, 
a  notion  of  going  over  there  and  taking  Irish  pupils, 
to  try  what  one  man  could  do  towards  civilizing  the 
people,  by  trying  to  civilize  and  Christianize  their  gen- 
try." And  the  particular  crisis  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Relief  Act  was  exactly  one  of  those  occasions  which 
brought  him  into  direct  collision  both  with  the  tone  of 
the  Liberal  party,  who  assumed  that,  as  being  a  politi- 
cal measure,  it  could  not  be  argued  on  religious 
grounds ;  and  of  the  Tory  party,  who  assumed  that,  as 
being  a  religious  question,  it  was  one  on  which  the 
almost  united  authority  of  the  English  clergy  ought  to 
have  decisive  weight :  whereas,  his  own  views  of  course 
led  him  to  maintain  that,  being  a  great  national  ques- 
tion of  right  and  wrong,  it  must,  on  the  one  hand, 
be  argued  on  Christian  grounds,  and  yet,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  the  clergy  would  not  be  the  best  judges  of 
it,  because  "  the  origin,  rights,  and  successive  revolu- 
tions of  society  were  subjects  which  they  avowedly 
neglected  to  study."  The  pamphlet  was  published  at 
so  late  a  stage  of  the  controversy,  that  it  had  not  time 
to  reach  a  second  edition  before  the  Act  was  passed. 
But  the  grounds  of  solemn  duty  on  which  his  vindica- 
tion of  the  Relief  Act  was  based,  as  the  best  mode  of 
repairing  the  sin  and  mischief,  never  yet  effaced,  of 
the  original  conquest  of  Ireland,  and  as  a  right,  which, 
as  being  still  a  distinct  national  society,  the  Irish  peo- 
ple justly  claimed, —  attracted  considerable  attention. 
Other  parts,  such  as  that  in  which  he  denied  the 
competence  of  the  clergy  to  pronounce  upon  historical 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  221 

questions^  created  an  impression  against  him  in  the 
great  body  of  his  profession,  which,  perhaps,  was  never 
wholly  removed.  Its  intrinsic  interest,  independent  of 
the  particular  controversy,  consists  in  its  being  his  first 
and  most  emphatic  protest  against  the  divorce  of  re- 
ligion and  politics,  and  the  most  complete  statement  of 
his  abstract  views  of  .political  science,  as  his  Appendix 
to  Thucydides  furnished  his  statement  of  their  histori- 
cal development. 


I.      TO    J.    T.    COLERIDGE,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  August  29, 1828. 

Here  we  are  actually  at  Rugby,  and  the  school 

will  open  to-morrow.  I  cannot  tell  you  with  what  deep  regret 
we  left  Laleham,  where  we  had  been  so  peaceful  and  so  happy, 
and  left  my  mother,  aunt,  and  sisters  for  the  first  time  in 
my  life,  except  during  my  school  and  college  absences.  It 
was  quite  "  feror  exul  in  altum,"  &c.,  but  then  we  both  looked 
upon  Rugby  as  on  our  Italy,  and  entered  it,  I  think,  with 

hope    and  with   thankfulness But   the   things  which 

I  have  had  to  settle,  and  the  people  whom  I  have  had  to  see 
on  business,  have  been  almost  endless ;  to  me,  unused  as 
I  was  to  business,  it  seemed  quite  a  chaos ;  but,  thank  God, 
being  in  high  health  and  spirits,  and  gaining  daily  more 
knowledge  of  the  state  of  affairs,  I  get  on  tolerably  well. 
Next  week,  however,  will  be  the  grand  experiment ;  and  I 
look  to  it  naturally  with  great  anxiety.  I  trust,  I  feel  how 
great  and  solemn  a  duty  I  have  to  fulfil,  and  that  I  shall  be 
enabled  to  fulfil  it  by  that  help  which  can  alone  give  the 
"  spirit  of  power  and  love,  and  of  a  sound  mind ; "  the  three 
great  requisites,  I  imagine,  in  a  schoolmaster. 

You  need  not  fear  my  reforming  furiously ;  there,  I  think, 
I  can  assure  you ;  but,  of  my  success  in  introducing  a  relig- 
ious principle  into  education,  I  must  be  doubtful ;  it  is  my 
most  earnest  wish,  and  I  pray  God  that  it  may  be  my  con- 
stant labor  and  prayer ;  but  to  do  this  would  be  to  succeed 
beyond  all  my  hopes  ;  it  would  be  a  happiness  so  great,  that, 
I  think,  the  world  would  yield  me  nothing  comparable  to  it. 
To  do  it,  however  imperfectly,  would  far  more  than  repay 
twenty  years  of  labor  and  anxiety. 
19* 


222  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

Saturday,  August  30th.     I  have  been  receiving,  this  morn- 
ing, a  constant  succession  of  visitors,  and  now,  before  I  go  out 

to  return .     August  31st.     I  was  again  interrupted,  and 

now,  I  think  that  I  had  better  at  once  finish  my  letter. 
I  have  entered  twenty-nine  new  boys,  and  have  got  four  more 
to  enter :  and  I  have  to-day  commenced  my  business  by  call- 
ing over  names  and  going  into  chapel,  where  I  was  glad  to 
see  that  the  boys  behaved  very  well.  I  cannot  tell  you  how 
odd  it  seems  to  me,  recalling,  at  once,  my  school-days  more 
vividly  than  I  could  have  thought  possible. 


II.      TO   REV.    F.    C.   BLACKSTONE. 

Rugby,  September  28, 1828. 

It  is,  indeed,  a  long  time  since  I  wrote  to  you,  and  there 
has  been  much  of  intense  interest  in  the  period  which  has 
elapsed  since  I  did  write.  But  it  has  been  quite  an  engross- 
ing occupation  ;  and  Thucydides  and  everything  else  have  gone 
to  sleep  while  I  have  been  attending  to  it.  Now  it  is  becom- 
ing more  familiar  to  me,  but  still  the  actual  employment  of 
time  is  very  great,  and  the  matters  for  thought  which  it  af- 
fords are  almost  endless.  Still  I  get  my  daily  exercise  and 
bathing  very  happily,  so  that  I  have  been,  and  am  perfectly 

well,  and  equal  in  strength  and  spirits  to  the  work 

For  myself,  I  like  it  hitherto  beyond  my  expectation,  but,  of 
course,  a  month  is  a  very  short  time  to  judge  from.  [After 
speaking  of  the  details  of  the  school,  and  expressing  his 
generally  favorable  impression  of  it.]  I  am  trying  to  estab- 
lish something  of  a  friendly  intercourse  with  the  Sixth  Form, 
by  asking  them  in  succession,  in  parties  of  four,  to  dinner 
with  us,  and  I  have  them  each  separately  up  into  my  room  to 
look  over  their  exercises I  mean  to  bring  in  some- 
thing like  "  gatherings  "*  before  it  is  long,  for  they  understand 
that  I  have  not  done  with  my  alterations,  nor  probably  ever 
shall  have  ;  and  I  am  going  to  have  an  Examination  for  every 
form  in  the  school,  at  the  end  of  the  short  half-year,  in  all 
the  business  of  the  half-year,  Divinity,  Greek  and  Latin, 
Arithmetic,  History,  Geography,  and  Chronology,  with  first 
and  second  classes,  and  prize  books  for  those  who  do  well. 
I  find  that  my  power  is  perfectly  absolute,  so  that  I  have  no 

*  A  \Viuchester  phrase  for  exercises  in  criticism. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  223 

excuse  if  I  do  not  try  to  make  the  school  something  like  my 
beau  ideal,  —  it  is  sure  to  fall  far  enough  short  in  reality. 
There  has  been  no  flogging  yet,  (and  I  hope  that  there  will 
be  none,)  and  surprisingly  few  irregularities.  I  chastise  at 
first,  by  very  gentle  impositions,  which  are  raised  for  a  repe- 
tition of  offences  —  flogging  will  be  only  my  ratio  ultima  — 
and  talking  I  shall  try  to  the  utmost.  I  believe  that  boys 
may  be  governed  a  great  deal  by  gentle  methods  and  kind- 
ness, and  appealing  to  their  better  feelings,  if  you  show  that 
you  are  not  afraid  of  them ;  I  have  seen  great  boys,  six  feet 
high,  shed  tears  when  I  have  sent  for  them  up  into  my  room 
and  spoken  to  them  quietly,  in  private,  for  not  knowing  their 
lesson,  and  I  have  found  that  this  treatment  produced  its . 
effects  afterwards  in  making  them  do  better.  But,  of  course, 
deeds  must  second  words  when  needful,  or  words  will  soon  be 
laughed  at. 


III.       TO    THE    SAME. 

Laleham,  Dec.  19,  1828. 

I  should  have  greatly  enjoyed  seeing  you  again 

and  seeing  you  with  your  wife,  and  at  your  own  home,  to  say 
nothing  of  resuming  some  of  the  matters  we  discussed  a  little 
in  the  summer.  The  constitutional  tone  of  different  minds 
naturally  gives  a  different  complexion  to  their  view  of  things, 
even  when  they  may  agree  in  the  main  ;  and  in  discussing 
matters  besides,  one,  or  at  least  I,  am  apt  to  dwell  on  my 
points  of  difference  with  a  man  rather  than  on  my  points  of 
agreement  with  him,  because,  in  one  case,  I  may  get  my  own 
opinions  modified  and  modify  his  —  in  the  other,  we  only  end 
where  we  began.  I  confess  that  it  does  pain  me  when  I  find 
my  friends  shocked  at  the  expression  of  my  sentiments,  be- 
cause if  a  man  had  entered  on  the  same  particular  inquiry 
himself,  although  he  should  have  come  to  a  wholly  different 
conclusion  at  last,  still,  if  he  gave  me  credit  for  sincerity,  he 
ought  not  to  be  shocked  at  my  not  having  as  yet  come  to  the 
same  conclusion  with  himself,  and  would  rather  quietly  try  to 
bring  me  there  —  and  if  he  had  not  inquired  into  the  subject, 
then  he  certainly  ought  not  to  be  shocked ;  as  giving  me 
credit  for  the  same  fundamental  principles  with  himself,  he 
ought  not  to  think  that  non-inquiry  would  lead  to  truth,  and 
inquiry  to  error.  In  your  case,  I  know  that  your  mind  is  en- 


224  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

tirely  candid ;  and  that  no  man  will  conduct  an  inquiry  with 
more  perfect  fairness ;  you  have,  therefore,  the  less  reason  for 
abstaining  from  inquiry  altogether.  I  can  assure  you,  that 
I  never  remember  to  have  held  a  conversation  such  as  those 
which  we  had  last  summer,  without  deriving  benefit  in  some 
way  or  other  from  the  remarks  urged  in  opposition  to  my  own 
views ;  very  often  they  have  modified  my  opinions,  sometimes 
entirely  changed  them  —  and  when  they  have  done  neither, 
they  have  yet  led  me  to  consider  myself  and  my  own  state  of 
mind ;  lest  even  whilst  holding  the  truth,  I  might  have  bought 
the  possession  of  it  too  dearly  (I  mean,  of  course,  in  lesser 
matters)  by  exercising  the  understanding  too  much,  and  the 
affections  too  little. 


IV.      TO   MRS.   EVELYN. 
(On  the  death  of  her  husband.) 

Rugby,  February  22, 1829. 

I  need  not,  I  trust,  say  how  deeply  I  was  shocked  and 
grieved 'by  the  intelligence  contained  in  your  letter.  I  was 
totally  ignorant  of  your  most  heavy  loss,  and  it  was  one  of 
the  hopes  in  which  I  have  often  fondly  indulged,  that  I  might 
some  time  or  other  again  meet  one  who  I  believe  was  my 
earliest  friend,  and  for  whom  I  had  never  ceased  to  retain  a 
strong  admiration  and  regard.  I  heard  of  him  last  winter 
from  a  common  friend  who  had  been  indebted  to  his  kind- 
ness, and  whom  I  have  also  lost  within  the  last  few  months, 
Mr.  Lawes,  of  Marlborough ;  and  since  that  time  I  had  again 
lost  sight  of  him,  till  I  received  from  you  the  account  of  his 
death.  He  must  indeed  be  an  irreparable  loss  to  all  his 
family  ;  for  I  well  remember  the  extraordinary  promise  which 
he  gave  as  a  boy,  of  mingled  nobleness  and  gentleness  of 
heart,  as  well  as  of  very  great  powers  of  understanding. 
These  were  visible  to  me  even  at  an  earlier  period  of  his  life 
than  you  are  perhaps  aware  of;  for  it  was  not  at  Harrow  that 
I  knew  him,  but  at  Warminster,  when  we  were  both  very 
young,  and  since  the  year  1806  I  have  never  seen  him ;  but 
the  impression  of  his  character  has  remained  strongly  marked 
on  my  memory  ever  since,  for  I  never  knew  so  bright  a  prom- 
ise in  any  other  boy ;  I  never  knew  any  spirit  at  that  age  so 
pure  and  generous,  and  so  free  from  the  ordinary  meannesses, 
coarsenesses,  and  littlenesses  of  boyhood.  It  will  give  me 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  225 

great  pleasure  to  comply  with  your  wishes  with  regard  to  an 
inscription  to  his  memory,  if  you  will  be  kind  enough  to  fur- 
nish me  with  some  particulars  of  his  life  and  character  in 
later  years ;  for  mine  is  but  a  knowledge  of  his  boyhood,  and 
I  am  sure  that  his  manhood  must  have  been  even  still  better 
worth  knowing.  You  will,  however,  I  am  sure,  allow  me  to 
state  in  perfect  sincerity,  that  I  feel  very  ill  qualified  to  write 
anything  of  this  nature,  and  that  it  requires  a  peculiar  talent 
which  I  feel  myself  wholly  to  want.  I  should  give  you,  I  fear, 
but  a  very  bad  inscription ;  but  if  you  really  wish  me  to  at- 
tempt it,  I  will  do  the  best  I  can  to  express  at  least  my  sincere 
regard  and  respect  for  the  memory  of  my  earliest  friend.* 

Let  me  thank  you  sincerely  for  all  the  particulars  which 
you  have  been  kind  enough  to  give  me  in  your  letter. 


V.       TO    THE    REV.    J.    LOWE. 

Rugby,  March  16, 1830. 

I  have  been  feeding  the  press  sheet  by  sheet  with  a  pam- 
phlet or  booklet  on  the  Catholic  Question.  You  will  say 
there  was  no  need ;  but  I  wanted  to  show  that  to  do  national 
injustice  is  a  sin,  and  that  the  clergy,  whilst  they  urge  the 
continuance  of  this  injustice,  are  making  themselves  indi- 
vidually guilty  of  it.  And  I  have  written  at  any  rate  very 
peaceably:  though  you  know  you  used  to  say  that  I  was  "vio- 
lent on  both  sides."  I  saw  Milman  at  Oxford,  (where  I  went 
not  as  you  may  suppose  to  vote  for  Sir  R.  Inglis,)  and  I  was 
sorry  to  hear  from  him  rather  an  indifferent  account  of  you. 
But  from  your  own  letter  since,  I  am  hoping  that  I  may  augur 

*  The  following  was  the  inscription  which  he  sent :  — 

TO  THE   MEMORY   OF 

GEORGE  EVELYN,  ESQ., 

ETC.,   ETC.,   ETC. 

HIS  EARLY   YEARS   GAVE  A   BEAUTIFUL  PROMISE 

OF   VIGOR   OF   UNDERSTANDING,    KINDNESS   OF  HEART 

AND    CHRISTIAN   NOBLENESS   OF   PRINCIPLE: 

HIS   MANHOOD   ABUNDANTLY   FULFILLED   IT. 

LIVING    AND   DYING   IN  THE   FAITH. OF    CHRIST, 

HE   HAS   LEFT   TO  HIS   FAMILY   A   HUMBLE   BUT   LIVELY  HOPE 

THAT,   AS   HE   WAS   RESPECTED   AND   LOVED   BY  MEN, 

HE  HAS  BEEN   FORGIVEN  AND   ACCEPTED   BY   GOD. 

O 


226  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

more  favorably.  I  do  rejoice  that  you  have  got  Hilton,  and 
that  you  are  thus  released  from  the  prospect  of  pupils.  Much 
as  I  enjoy  the  work  of  education  in  health,  for  it  is  at  once 
«|tf  irpaKTucr/  and  (£is  iroirjriKr),  I  think  it  would  press  heavily 
upon  me  if  I  were  not  quite  well  and  strong.  I  should  much 
like  to  see  you  in  your  new  quarters,  but  my  difficulty  is  that, 
when  I  can  move  at  all,  I  like  to  move  so  far ;  and  thus,  in 
the  summer,  if  all  goes  well  I  hope  to  see  the  Alps,  and  swim 
in  the  Mediterranean  once  again.  Your  cousin,  little  Jack- 
son, is  a  nice  boy,  and  reminds  me  much  of  his  poor  eldest 
brother ;  but  I  do  not  and  cannot  see  much  individually  of  the 
boys  in  the  lower  part  of  the  school,  although  I  know  pretty 
nearly  how  each  is  going  on.  Reform  is  a  great  and  difficult 
work :  I  can  readily  allow  of  the  difficulties,  but  not  of  the 
dishonest  spirit  which  makes  when  it  cannot  find  them,  and 
exaggerates  them  when  it  can.  "  Where  there  is  a  will  there 
is  a  way,"  is  true  I  believe  politically  as  well  as  spiritually, 
and  you  know  that  mine  is  a  commonwealth,  or  rather  one  of 
Aristotle's  or  Plato's  perfect  kingdoms,  where  the  king  is  supe- 
rior by  nature  to  all  his  subjects,  —  propter  defectum  aetatis. 
But  if  the  king  of  Prussia  was  as  sincere  a  lover  of  liberty  as 
I  am,  he  would  give  his  people  a  constitution,  —  for  my  great 
desire  is  to  teach  my  boys  to  govern  themselves,  —  a  much 
better  thing  than  to  govern  them  well  myself.  Only  in  their 
case,  "  propter  defectum  aetatis,"  as  aforesaid,  they  never  can 
be  quite  able  to  govern  themselves,  and  will  need  some  of  my 
government.  You  would  be  amused  to  see  how  the  gentlemen 
in  this  neighborhood  are  coming  round  about  the  Catholics. 
The  worst  part  I  think  of  the  whole  business  is  the  effectual 
manner  in  which  the  clergy  generally,  and  of  Oxford  espe- 
cially, have  cut  their  own  throats  in  the  judgment  of  all  en- 
lightened public  men,  —  an  evil  more  dangerous  to  their  inter- 
ests than  twenty  Catholic  Emancipation  bills,  and  which,  as  in 
France,  may  extend  to  more  than  their  worldly  interests,  for 
an  ignorant  and  selfish  clergy  is  one  of  the  greatest  stumbling- 
blocks  in  the  way  of  able  and  liberal-minded  statesmen  em- 
bracing Christianity  thoroughly.  They  will  compliment  it 
generally,  but  they  will  not  heartily  act  upon  its  principles  so 
long  as  they  who  are  supposed  to  represent  its  spirit  best,  are 
such  unfaithful  mirrors  of  it.  I  had  no  conception  how  much 
of  the  worst  Puritanism  still  subsisted,  and  now  stript  even 
of  that  which  once  palliated  its  evils,  —  the  love  of  civil 
liberty. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  227 

VI.       TO    THE    REV.    JULIUS    HARE. 

Rugby,  March  30,  1829. 

I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  sending  me  your 

Defence  of  Niebuhr;  and  still  more  for  the  most  kind  and 
gratifying  manner  in  which  you  have  mentioned  me  in  it ; 
there  are  few  things  more  delightful  than  to  be  so  spoken  of 
by  those  whom  we  entirely  respect,  and  whose  good  opinion 
and  regard  we  have  wished  to  gain. 

I  should  not  have  troubled  you  with  my  pamphlet  on  the 
Catholic  question,  had  it  not  involved  points  beyond  the  mere 
question,  now  at  issue,  and  on  which  I  was  desirous  to  offer 
you  some  explanation,  as  I  think  our  opinions  respecting  them 
are  widely  different.  From  what  you  say  in  the  Guesses  at 
Truth,  and  again  in  your  Defence  of  Niebuhr,  you  appear  to 
me  to  look  upon  the  past  with  feelings  of  reverence,  in  which 
I  cannot  participate.  It  is  not  that  I  think  we  are  better 
than  our  fathers  in  proportion  to  our  lights,  or  that  our  powers 
are  at  all  greater ;  on  the  contrary,  they  deserve  more  admira- 
tion, considering  the  difficulties  they  had  to  struggle  with;  yet 
still  I  cannot  but  think,  that  the  habit  of  looking  back  upon 
them  as  models,  and  more  especially  in  all  political  institu- 
tions, is  the  surest  way  to  fetter  our  own  progress,  and  to  de- 
prive us  of  the  advantages  of  our  own  superior  experience, 
which,  it  is  no  boast  to  say,  that  we  possess,  but  rather,  a  most 
disgraceful  reproach,  since  we  use  them  so  little.  The  error 
of  the  last  century  appears  to  me  to  have  been  this,  that  they 
undervalued  their  ancestors  without  duly  studying  antiquity  ; 
thus  they  naturally  did  not  gain  the  experience  which  they 
ought  to  have  done,  and  were  confident  even  whilst  digging 
from  under  their  feet  the  ground  on  which  their  confidence 
might  have  rested  justly.  Yet  still,  even  in  this  respect,  the 
16th  and  17th  centuries  have  little  cause,  I  think,  to  insult 
the  18th.  The  great  writers  of  those  times  read,  indeed, 
enormously,  but  surely  their  critical  spirit  was  in  no  propor- 
tion to  their  reading,  —  and  thus  the  true  experience  to  be 
gained  from  the  study  of  antiquity  was  not  gained,  because 
antiquity  was  not  fully  understood.  It  is  not,  I  believe,  that 
I  estimate  our  actual  doings  more  highly  than  you  do ;  but, 
I  believe,  I  estimate  those  of  our  fathers  less  highly ;  and 
instead  of  looking  upon  them  as  in  any  degree  a  standard,  I 
turn  instinctively  to  that  picture  of  entire  perfection  which 
the  Gospel  holds  out,  and  from  which  I  cannot  but  think  that 


228  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

the  state  of  things  in  times  past  was  further  removed  even 
than  ours  is  now,  although  our  little  may  be  more  inexcus:i!il<- 
than  their  less  was  in  them.  And,  in  particular,  I  confess, 
that  if  I  were  called  upon  to  name  what  spirit  of  evil  predom- 
inantly deserved  the  name  of  Antichrist,  I  should  name  the 
spirit  of  chivalry,*  —  the  more  detestable  for  the  very  guise 
of  the  "  Archangel  ruined,"  which  has  made  it  so  seductive 
to  the  most  generous  spirits,  —  but  to  me  so  hateful,  because 
it  is  in  direct  opposition  to  the  impartial  justice  of  the  Gospel, 
'and  its  comprehensive  feeling  of  equal  brotherhood,  and  be- 
cause it  so  fostered  a  sense  of  honor  rather  than  a  sense  of 
duty. 


VII.      TO    KEV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

May  29, 1829. 

[After  refusing  to  reprint  the  pamphlet  on  the  Roman 
Catholic  claims,  and  expressing  his  belief  that  the  school  has 
not  and  will  not  sustain  any  injury  from  what  he  has  done.] 
I  claim  a  full  right  to  use  my  own  discretion  in  writing  upon 
any  subject  I  choose,  provided  I  do  not  neglect  my  duties  as 
master  in  order  to  find  time  for  it.  But  those  who  know  me 
will  be  aware  that,  to  say  nothing  of  duty,  my  interest  in  the 
school  far  exceeds  what  I  feel  in  any  sort  of  composition  of 
my  own ;  and  that  neither  here  nor  at  Laleham,  have  I  ever 
allowed  my  own  writings  to  encroach  upon  the  time,  or  on 
the  spirits  and  vigor  of  mind  and  body,  which  I  hold  that 
my  pupils  have  a  paramount  claim  upon. 

As  to  the  principles  in  the  pamphlet,  it  is  a  matter  of  un- 
feigned astonishment  to  me,  that  any  man  calling  himself  a 
Christian,  should  think  them  bad,  or  should  not  recognize  in 
them  the  very  principles  of  Christianity  itself.  If  my  prin- 
ciples are  bad,  I  only  wish  that  those  who  think  them  so 
would  state  their  own  in  opposition  to  them.  It  is  all  very 


*  "  Chivalry,"  or  (as  he  used  more  frequently  to  call  the  element  in  the 
middle  ages  which  he  thus  condemned)  "feudality,  is  especially  Keltic  and 
barbarian,  —  incompatible  with  the  highest  virtue'of  which  man  is  capable, 
and  the  last  at  which  he  arrives,  —  a  sense  of  justice.  It  sets  up  the  per- 
sonal allegiance  to  the  chief  above  allegiance  to  God  and  law."  And  in  like 
manner  he  maintained  that  the  great  excellence  of  the  18th  century  was 
the  development  of  the  idea  of  justice,  —  even  amidst  the  excesses  to  which 
it  was  carried  in  some  of  the  iiotious  then  prevalent  oil  what  was  called 
civil  and  religious  liberty. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  229 

well  to  call  certain  principles  mischievous  and  democratical ; 
but  I  believe  very  few  of  those,  who  do  so  call  them,  would 
be  able  to  bear  the  monstrous  nature  of  their  own,  if  they 
were  obliged  fully  to  devolop  them.  I  mean  that  they  would 
then  be  seen  to  involve  what  in  their  daily  language  about 
things  of  common  life  their  very  holders  laugh  at  as  absurd- 
ity and  mischief.  For  instance,  about  continual  reforms,  or 
the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors,  —  I  have  heard  Tories  laugh  at 
the  farmers  in  their  parish,  for  opposing  the  mending  of  the 
roads,  because,  as  they  said,  what  had  been  good  enough  for 
their  fathers  was  good  enough  for  them ;  and  yet  these  farmers 
were  not  an  atom  more  silly  than  the  people  who  laughed  at 
them,  but  only  more  consistent.  And  as  to  the  arrogance  of 
tone  in  the  pamphlet,  I  do  not  consider  it  to  be  arrogance  to 
assume  that  I  know  more  of  a  particular  subject,  which  I 
have  studied  eagerly  from  a  child,  than  those  do  who  notori- 
ously do  not  study  it  at  all.  The  very  men  who  think  it  hard 
to  be  taxed  with  ignorance  of  modern  history,  and  of  the  laws 
and  literature  of  foreign  nations,  are  men  who,  till  this  ques- 
tion came  on,  never  pretended  to  know  anything  about  them : 
and,  in  the  case  of  the  Evangelicals,  professed  to  shun  such 
studies  as  profane.  I  should  consider  no  man  arrogant,  who, 
if  I  were  to  talk  about  some  mathematical  or  scientific  ques- 
tion which  he  had  studied  habitually,  and  on  which  all  scien- 
tific men  were  agreed,  should  tell  me  that  I  did  not  and  could 
not  understand  the  subject,  because  I  had  never  liked  mathemat- 
ics, and  had  never  pretended  to  work  at  them.  Those  only  who 
have  studied  history  with  that  fondness  that  I  have  done  all 
my  life  can  fully  appreciate  the  pain  which  it  gives  me  to  see 
the  most  mischievous  principles  supported,  as  they  have  been 
on  this  question,  with  an  ignorance  truly  audacious.  I  will 
only  instance  Mr.  C.'s  appeal  to  English  History  in  proof  that 
God's  judgments  will  visit  us  if  we  grant  any  favor  to  the 

Catholics On  the  point  of  Episcopacy,  I  can  only 

say,  that  my  notions,  whether  right  or  wrong,  have  been 
drawn  solely  from  the  New  Testament  itself,  according  to 
what  appears  to  me  its  true  meaning  and  spirit.  I  do  not 
know  that  I  ever  read  any  Low  Church  or  No  Church  argu- 
ment in  my  life.  But  I  should  like  to  develop  my  notions  on 
this  point  more  fully  hereafter.  I  have  some  thoughts  of 
publishing  a  volume  of  essays  on  various  points  connected 
with  Christian  doctrine  and  practice :  I  do  not  mean  now,  — 
but  if  I  live,  and  can  woi'k  out  some  points,  on  which  I  have 

VOL.   I.  20 


230  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

not  yet  got  far  enough  to  authorize  me  to  address  others,  yet 
I  think  I  see  my  way  to  some  useful  truths.  Meantime  I 
trust  I  shall  not  give  just  cause  of  offence  to  any  good  and 
wise  man,  —  or  of  personal  offence  to  any  man. 


VIII.      TO    A    PARENT    HOLDING    UNITARIAN    OPINIONS. 

Rugby,  June  16,  1829. 

I  had  occasion  to  speak  to  your  son  this  evening  on  the 
subject  of  the  approaching  confirmation ;  and,  as  I  had  under- 
stood that  his  friends  were  not  members  of  the  Established 
Church,  my  object  was  not  so  much  to  persuade  him  to  be 
confirmed,  as  to  avail  myself  of  the  opportunity  thus  afforded 
me  to  speak  with  him  generally  on  the  subject  of  his  state  as 
a  Christian,  and  the  peculiar  temptations  to  which  he  was 
now  peculiarly  exposed,  and  the  nature  of  that  hope  and 
faith  which  he  would  require  as  his  best  defence.  But,  on 
inquiring  to  what  persuasion  his  friends  belonged,  I  found 
that  they  were  Unitarians.  I  felt  myself  therefore  unable  to 
proceed,  because,  as  nothing  would  be  more  repugnant  to  my 
notions  of  fair  dealing,  than  to  avail  myself  indirectly  of  my 
opportunities  of  influencing  a  boy's  mind  contrary  .to  the  re- 
ligious belief  of  his  parents,  without  giving  them  the  fullest 
notice,  so,  on  the  other  hand,  when  the  differences  of  belief 
are  so  great  and  so  many,  I  feel  that  I  could  not  at  all  enter 
into  the  subject,  without  enforcing  principles  wholly  contrary 
to  those  in  which  your  son  has  been  brought  up.  This  dif- 
ficulty will  increase  with  every  half-year  that  he  remains  at 
the  school,  as  he  will  be  gradually  coming  more  and  more 
under  my  immediate  care ;  and  I  can  neither  suffer  any  of 
those  boys  with  whom  I  am  more  immediately  connected,  to 
be  left  without  religious  instruction,  nor  can  I  give  it  in  his 
case,  without  unavoidably  imparting  views,  wholly  different 
from  those  entertained  by  the  persons  whom  he  is  naturally 
most  disposed  to  love  and  honor.  Under  these  circumstances, 
I  think  it  fair  to  state  to  you,  what  line  I  snail  feel  bound  to 
follow,  after  the  knowledge  which  I  have  gained  of  your 
son's  religious  belief.  In  everything  I  should  say  to  him  on 
the  subject,  I  should  use  every  possible  pains  and  delicacy  to 
avoid  hurting  his  feelings  with  regard  to  his  relations ;  but 
at  the  same  time,  I  cannot  avoid  laboring  to  impress  on  him, 
what  is  my  belief  on  the  most  valuable  truths  in  Christianity, 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  231 

and  which,  I  fear,  must  be  sadly  at  variance  with  the  tenets 
in  which  he  has  been  brought  up.  I  should  not  do  this  con- 
troversially, and  in  the  case  of  any  other  form  of  dissent  from 
the  Establishment,  I  would  avoid  dwelling  on  the  differences 
between  us,  because  I  could  teach  ail  that  I  conceive  to  be 
essential  in  Christianity,  without  at  all  touching  upon  them. 
But  in  this  instance,  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  interfering  with 
the  very  points  most  at  issue.  I  have  a  very  good  opinion 
of  your  son,  both  as  to  his  conduct  and  abilities,  and  I  should 
be  very  sorry  to  lose  him  from  the  school.  I  think,  also, 
that  any  one  who  knows  me,  would  give  you  ample  assurance 
that  I  have  not  the  slightest  feeling  against  Dissenters  as 
such,  or  any  desire,  but  rather  very  much  the  contrary,  to 
make  this  school  exclusive.  My  difficulty  with  your  son  is 
not  one  which  I  feel  as  a  Churchman,  but  as  a  Christian ; 
and  goes  only  on  this  simple  principle,  that  I  feel  bound  to 
teach  the  essentials  of  Christianity  to  all  those  committed  to 
my  care  —  and  with  these  the  tenets  of  the  Unitarians  alone, 
among  all  the  Dissenters  in  the  kingdom,  are  in  my  judgment 
irreconcilable.  I  trust  that  you  will  forgive  me  for  having 
troubled  you  thus  at  length  on  this  subject. 


IX.      TO    THE   REV.    GEORGE    CORNISH. 
(After  the  death,  of  his  father-in-law.) 

Rugby,  September  2,  1829. 

I,  too,  had  been  meditating  a  letter  to  you  for  some  time 
past,  when  the  sight  of  yours  roused  me  to  make  a  vigorous 
effort,  and  here  I  have  regularly  begun  a  sheet  of  paper  to 
you.  You  will  perhaps  have  heard  already  that  all  our 
anxiety  for  Mr.  Penrose  was  speedily  and  mercifully  termi- 
nated, by  as  blessed  a  death  as  I  suppose  ever  was  witnessed. 
Although  we  were  naturally  anxious  about  him,  because  his 
attacks,  though  very  slight  and  transient,  had  rather  increased 
in  frequency,  yet  he  was  perfectly  able  to  perform  all  his 
usual  duties,  and  enjoy  his  usual  comforts  in  his  family,  and 
even  his  amusements  in  attending  to  his  garden.  On  the 
Thursday  before  his  death  he  was  standing  on  his  ladder,  and 
pruning  his  vine  for  some  tune,  and  he  went  to  bed  perfectly 
well.  The  next  morning  he  was  seized  with  a  more  violent 
attack,  but  still  without  pain,  or  without  affecting  his  senses, 
and  all  he  said  indicated  perfect  Christian  peace.  A  second 


232  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

attack  the  same  morning  made  him  speechless,  and  he  soon 
sank  into  a  lethargic  slumber,  in  which  he  remained  till  Sun- 
day night,  when  he  expired  in  the  arms  of  his  children  with- 
out a  struggle.  We  arrived  in  time  to  see  him  alive,  although 
he  was  then  insensible,  and  M.  followed  him  to  his  grave  on 
the  Thursday  following,  with  her  aunts,  brothers  and  sisters, 

and  John  Keble  to  read  the  funeral  service When 

I  dwell  on  the  entire  happiness  that  we  are  tasting  day  al'.rr 
day  and  year  after  year,  it  really  seems  startling ;  and  the 
sense  of  so  much  and  such  continued  temporal  mercy,  is  even 
more  than  humbling,  —  it  is  at  times  even  fearful  to  me  when 
I  look  within,  and  know  how  little  truly  grateful  I  am  for  it. 
All  the  children  are  well,  and  all,  I  trust,  improving  in  char- 
acter —  thanks  to  their  dear  mother's  care  for  them,  who, 
under  God,  has  been  their  constant  corrector  and  guide.  As 
for  myself,  I  think  of  Wordsworth's  lines  :  — 

"  Yes !  they  can  make  who  fail  to  find 
Brief  leisure  e'en  in  busiest  days,"  &c., 

and  I  know  how  much  need  I  have  to  make  such  moments  of 
leisure :  for  else  one  goes  on  still  employed,  till  all  makes 
progress,  except  our  spiritual  life,  and  that,  I  fear,  goes  back- 
ward. The  very  dealing,  as  I  do,  with  beings  in  the  highest 
state  of  bodily  health  and  spirits,  is  apt  to  give  a  correspond- 
ing carelessness  to  my  own  mind.  I  must  be  all  alive  and 
vigorous  to  manage  them,  and  to  do  my  work  ;  very  different 
from  the  contemplations  of  sickness  and  sorrow,  which  so 
often  present  themselves  to  a  man  who  has  the  care  of  a 
parish.  And,  indeed,  my  spirits  in  themselves  are  a  great 
blessing,  for  without  them,  the  work  would  weigh  me  down, 
whereas  now  I  seem  to  throw  it  off  like  the  fleas  from  a  dog's 
back  when  he  shakes  himself.  May  I  only  learn  daily  and 
hourly  cru<ppov(u>. 

I  am  very  much  delighted  with  what  you  say  of  my  pamphlet 

[on  the  Roman  Catholic  claims].     I  know  it  gave pain, 

and  I   fear  it  has ,  and  others  of  my  friends.     Yet,  I 

know  that  I  did  not  write  it  with  one  atom  of  unkindness  or 
violence  of  feeling — nor  do  I  think  that  the  language  or  tone 
is  violent ;  and  what  I  said  of  the  clergy,  I  said  in  the  very 
simplicity  of  my  heart,  no  more  imagining  that  it  would  give 
offence,  than  if  I  had  said  that  they  were  unacquainted  gen- 
erally with  military  tactics  or  fortification.  The  part  which 
you  object  to  was  not  put  in  unthinkingly  —  but  I  wished  very 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  233 

much  to  bring  the  matter  of  schism  to  an  issue ;  and  if  any 
respectable  man  were  to  notice  that  part  of  the  pamphlet,  I 
should  like  to  enter  more  fully  into  the  subject.  My  own 
notions  upon  it  have  grown  up  wholly  out  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, and  because  I  never  have  thought,  that  what  people 
call  the  Primitive  Church,  and  much  less  the  Ante-Nicene 
Church  more  generally,  was  any  better  authority  per  se,  than 
the  Church  of  Rome,  or  the  Greek  Church.  But  I  do  not 
know  that  what  I  have  said  in  the  pamphlet  goes  at  all  be- 
yond the  fair  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  our  own  Article,* 
which  gives  to  any  national  Church  an  authority  to  manage 
its  own  concerns,  where  God  has  not  laid  down  any  fixed 
rule ;  and,  besides,  what  resemblance  is  there  between  the 
government  of  the  most  ancient  Episcopal  Churches,  and 
that  of  the  Church  of  England,  to  those  who  regard  resem- 
blances or  differences  of  government  to  consist  in  things  more 
than  in  names  ?  I  think,  that  what  I  have  said  in  my  pam- 
phlet merely  goes  so  far  as  to  assert,  that  there  is  no  schism 
in  the  Church  of  England,  having  nothing  to  do  with  th« 
Bishop  of  Rome,  or  in  the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  having  nothing  to 
do  with  any  Archbishops  and  Bishops  at  all,  but  that  I  have  not 
at  all  treated  of  the  question  of  different  ecclesiastical  societies 
existing  in  one  and  the  same  civil  society  like  our  English 
Dissenters,  whatever  my  own  opinions  may  be  about  the  mat- 
ter. I  find  people  continually  misunderstanding  the  strong 
distinction  which  I  draw  between  individuals  and  societies, 
insomuch  that  Faber  charges  me  with  saying,  that  every 
individual  has  a  right  to  govern  himself,  which  I  have  specially 
disclaimed  in  divers  places  ;  being,  in  fact,  a  firm  believer  in 
the  duty  of  absolute  passive  obedience  in  all  cases  between 
an  individual  and  the  government  —  but  not  when  the  in- 
dividual is  acting  as  a  member  of  the  society,  and  their  con- 
currence with  him  tells  him  that  obedience  is  now  a  misplaced 
term  — because  there  is  no  authority  in  a  rebellious  govern- 
ment —  rebellious  against  society  —  to  claim  obedience.  I 
am  sure  that  my  views  in  this  matter  are  neither  seditious 
nor  turbulent  —  and  I  think  I  stated  them  clearly,  but  it  seems 
they  were  not  clear  to  everybody. 

*  Article  34. 
20* 


234  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 


X.      TO    REV.    F.    C.   BLACKSTONE. 

Rugby,  October  14, 1829. 

I  never  felt  more  strongly  the  desire  of  keeping 

up  my  old  friendships,  and  it  often  grieves  me  to  think  how 
little  I  see  or  hear  of  many  of  those  for  whom  I  feel  the 
strongest  regard.  I  do  not  mean  that  this  is  their  fault  rather 
than  mine,  or  that  it  is  a  fuult  at  all ;  but  it  is  a  tendency  of 
middle  life  and  settled  occupation,  which  I  think  we  ought  to 
struggle  against,  or  else  it  grows  with  a  fearful  rapidity.  I 
am  very  anxious  to  express  my  repentance  of  that  passage  in 
my  pamphlet,  which  you  allude  to,  "  raving  about  idolatry," 
&c.  I  mean  my  repentance  of  its  tone  and  language,  for  the 
substance  of  it  I  think  correct,  and  that  men  whose  most 
ignorant,  and  worse  than  ignorant,  application  of  English 
history  had,  to  say  the  truth,  made  me  angry,  are  likely  to 
do  a  great  deal  of  mischief  in  Ireland.  But  the  expression 
was  unkind,  and  too  sweeping,  and  I  certainly  ought  not,  nor 
would  I,  speak  of  all  those  as  "  raving  about  idolatry,"  whose 
opinions  as  to  the  guilt  of  the  Romish  Church  differ  from  my 
own.  With  regard  to  the  apparent  inconsistency  between 
the  sermons  and  the  pamphlet,  you  will  find  the  term  "  prac- 
tically idolatry "  applied  to  the  Roman  Catholic  system  in 
some  countries,  even  in  the  pamphlet.  I  never  wish  to  mince 
the  matter  with  their  practices,  but  still,  in  principle,  I  cannot 
call  the  Romish  Church  an  idolatrous  Church  in  that  strong 
sense  as  to  warrant  Faber's  conclusions,  even  putting  aside 
the  difference  of  Christian  times  from  Jewish.  I  should 
compare  their  superstitions  to  the  worship  of  the  brazen 
serpent,  which  Hezekiah  did  away  with,  which  appears  to 
have  been  long  in  existence,  and  which,  in  many  of  its  wor- 
shippers, at  any  rate,  was  practically  idolatry  ;  but  I  should 
not  have  called  the  Jewish  Church  idolatrous  so  long  as  this 
worship  was  encouraged,  nor  applied  to  it  the  language  of 
"  Come  out  of  her,  my  people,"  &c. 

Of  the  moral  state  of  the  boys,  for  which  of  course  I  care 
infinitely  the  most,  I  can  judge  the  least ;  our  advantages 
in  that  respect  are  great,  at  least  in  the  absence  of  many 
temptations  to  gross  vice ;  but  to  cultivate  a  good  spirit  in  the 
highest  sense  is  a  far  different  thing  from  .-hutting  out  one  or 
two  gross  evils  from  want  of  opportunity. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD  235 

XI.       TO    REV.    J.    TUCKER. 

Rugby,  October  23,  1829. 

If  we  are  alive  fifteen   years  hence,  I  think  I 

would  go  with  you  gladly  to  Swan  River,  if  they  will  make 
me  schoolmaster  there,  and  lay  my  bones  in  the  land  of 
kangaroos  and  opossums.  I  laugh  about  it ;  yet  if  my  wife 
were  alive,  and  able  to  go,  I  should  think  it  a  very  great 
benefit  to  the  good  cause  to  go  out  with  all  my  family,  and 
become  a  Swan-River  man ;  and  I  should  try  to  get  others  of 
our  friends  to  go  out  with  us.  My  notion  is,  that  no  mis- 
sionaryzing  is  half  so  beneficial,  as  to  try  to  pour  sound  and 
healthy  blood  into  a  young  civilized  society ;  to  make  one 
colony,  if  possible,  like  the  ancient  colonies,  or  like  New 
England  —  a  living  sucker  from  the  mother  country,  bearing 
the  same  blossoms  and  the  same  fruits,  not  a  reproduction  of 
its  vilest  excrescences,  its  ignorance,  and  its  wickedness, 
while  all  its  good  elements  are  left  behind  in  the  process. 
No  words  can  tell  the  evil  of  such  colonies  as  we  have 
hitherto  planted,  where  the  best  parts  of  the  new  society 
have  been  men  too  poor  to  carry  with  them  or  to  gain  much 
of  the  higher  branches  of  knowledge  ;  or  else  mere  official 
functionaries  from  England,  whose  hearts  and  minds  have 
been  always  half  at  home,  and  who  have  never  identified 
themselves  with  the  land  in  which  they  were  working.  But 
if  you  and  your  sisters  were  to  go  out,  with  half  Southborough 
after  you,  —  apothecary,  lawyers,  butchers,  bakers,  tailors, 
carpenters,  and  laborers,  —  and  if  we  were  to  join  with  a 
similar  draught  from  Rugby  and  Laleham,  I  think  we  should 
deserve  to  be  dvaypairrol  vtpyerai  both  here  and  in  Swan 
River.  Such  are  my  notions  about  it;  and  I  am  not  clear 
that  I  shall  not  devote  my  first  £  1,000  that  I  make  here  to 
the  purchase  of  land  in  Swan  River,  that  I  may  have  my 
estate  and  the  school  buildings  got  into  due  order,  before  I 
shut  up  shop  at  Rugby.  Meantime,  I  hope  you  will  not 
think  I  ought  to  shut  up  shop  forthwith,  and  adjourn  to  the 
next  asylum  for  daft  people,  because  I  am  thus  wildly  dream- 
ing about  Swan  River,  instead  of  talking  soberly  about  Rug- 
by. But  Rugby  is  a  very  nice  place  all  the  same,  and  I  wish 
you  would  come  and  form  your  own  judgment  of  it,  or  that 
some  of  your  sisters  would,  if  you  cannot  or  will  not. 


236  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

XII.      TO   J.    T.    COLERIDGE,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  November  4, 1829. 

What  a  time  it  is  since  I  wrote  to  you  !  And  how  much 
has  occurred  and  is  continually  occurring,  on  which  I  should 
like  to  write  to  you.  You  have  heard  perhaps  of  Mr.  Pen- 
rose's  death  in  September  last,  when,  from  the  enjoyment 
of  full  health  and  vigor  of  mind  and  body,  he  was  called 
away  in  three  days  with  no  intermediate  pain  or  struggle, 
but  by  a  gentle  lethargic  sleep,  which  lasted  uninterrupted  to 
his  very  last  moment.  Coupled  with  his  holy  and  Christian 
life,  which  made  him  require  no  long  time  to  go  and  renew 
his  exhausted  oil,  his  end  was  a  most  complete  fvdava<ria,  so 
rare  a  blessing,  that  one  dares  not  hope  or  pray  for  a  similar 
mercy  in  one's  own  case 

We  are  going  on  comfortably,  and  I  trust,  thrivingly,  with 
the  school.  We  are  above  200,  and  still  looking  upwards ; 
but  I  neither  expect,  and  much  less  desire,  any  great  addition 
to  our  numbers.  The  school  cannot,  I  think,  regularly  expect 
more  than  200  or  250  ;  it  may  ascend  higher  with  a  strong 
flood,  but  there  will  be  surely  a  corresponding  ebb  after  it. 
You  may  imagine  that  I  ponder  over,  often  enough,  the  va* 
rious  discussions  that  I  have  had  with  you  about  education, 
and  verse-making,  and  reading  the  Poets.  I  find  the  natural 
leaning  of  a  schoolmaster  is  so  much  to  your  view  of  the 
question,  that  my  reason  is  more  than  ever  led  to  think  my 
own  notions  strongly  required  in  the  present  state  of  classical 
education,  if  it  were  only  on  the  principle  of  the  bent  stick. 
There  is  something  so  beautiful  in  good  Latin  verses,  and  in 
hearing  fine  poetry  well  construed,  and  something  so  attrac- 
tive altogether  in  good  scholarship,  that  I  do  not  wonder  at 
masters  directing  an  undue  [>ortion  of  their  attention  to  a  crop 
so  brilliant.  I  feel  it  growing  in  myself  daily  ;  and,  if  I  feel 
it,  with  prejudices  all  on  the  other  side,  I  do  not  wonder  at  its 
being  felt  generally.  But  my  deliberate  conviction  is  stronger 
and  stronger,  that  all  this  system  is  wholly  wrong  for  the 
greater  number  of  boys.  Those  who  have  talents  and  natural 
taste,  and  fondness  for  poetry,  find  the  poetry  lessons  very 
useful ;  the  mass  do  not  feel  one  tittle  about  the  matter,  and, 
I  speak  advisedly,  do  not,  in  my  belief,  benefit  from  them  one 
grain.  I  am  not  sure  that  other  things  would  answer  better, 
though  I  have  very  little  doubt  of  it ;  but  at  any  rate,  the 
present  plan  is  so  entire  a  failure,  that  nothing  can  be  risked 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  237 

by  changing  it More  than  half  my  boys  never  saw 

the  sea,  and  never  were  in  London,  and  it  is  surprising  how 
the  first  of  these  disadvantages  interferes  with  their  under- 
standing much  of  the  ancient  poetry,  while  the  other  keeps 
the  range  of  their  ideas  in  an  exceedingly  narrow  compass. 
Brought  up  myself  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  amidst  the  bustle  of 
soldiers  and  sailors,  and  familiar  from  a  child  with  boats  and 
ships,  and  the  flags  of  half  Europe,  which  gave  me  an  instinc- 
tive acquaintance  with  geography,  I  quite  marvel  to  find  in 
what  a  state  of  ignorance  boys  are  at  seventeen  or  eighteen, 
who  have  lived  all  their  days  in  inland  country  parishes,  or 

small  country  towns For  your  comfort,  I  think  I  am 

succeeding  in  making  them  write  very  fair  Latin  prose,  and 
to  observe  and  understand  some  of  the  differences  between 
the  Latin  and  English  idioms.  On  the  other  hand,  what  our 
boys  want  in  one  way  they  get  in  another ;  from  the  very 
circumstance  of  their  being  the  sons  of  quieter  parents,  they 
have  far  less  v/3pi?  and  more  eijjtfeto,  than  the  boys  of  any 
other  school  I  ever  knew.  Thus,  to  say  the  least,  they  have 
less  of  a  most  odious  and  unchristian  quality,  and  are  thus 
more  open  to  instruction,  and  have  less  repugnance  to  be 

good,  because  their  master  wishes  them  to  be  so I 

have  almost  filled  my  paper,  and  can  only  add  that  Thucy- 
dides  is  getting  on  slowly,  but  I  think  that  it  will  be  a  much 
less  defective  book  than  it  was  likely  to  have  been  had  I  re- 
mained at  Laleham ;  for  though  I  have  still  an  enormous  deal 
to  learn,  yet  my  scholarship  has  mended  considerably  within 
the  last  year  at  Rugby.  I  suppose  you  will  think  at  any  rate 
that  it  will  be  better  to  publish  Thucydides,  however  imper- 
fectly, than  to  write  another  pamphlet.  Poor  dear  pamphlet ! 
I  seem  to  feel  the  greater  tenderness  for  it,  because  it  has 
excited  so  much  odium ;  and  now  I  hear  that  it  is  reported  at 
Oxford  that  I  wish  to  suppress  it ;  which  is  wholly  untrue.  I 
would  not  print  a  second  edition,  because  the  question  was 
settled,  and  controversy  about  it  was  become  absurd ;  but  I 
never  have  repented  of  it  in  any  degree,  or  wished  it  unwrit- 
ten, "  pace  tua  dixerim,"  and  I  only  regret  that  I  did  not  print 
a  larger  impression. 


238  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

XIII.      TO    REV.    H.   JENKINS. 

Rugby,  November  11, 1829. 

I  thank  you  heartily  for  two  very  kind  letters,  and  am  very 
anxious  to  be  favored  with  some  more  of  your  friend's  com- 
ments [on  Thucydides] I  hope  I  am  not  too  old  or 

too  lazy  or  too  obstinate  to  be  taught  better. I  do 

thank  you  very  much  for  your  kindness  in  taking  so  much 
trouble  in  my  behalf ;  and  I  earnestly  beg  of  you  to  send  me 

more And  can  you  tell  me,  or,  if  not,  will  you  ask 

Amicus  Doct.,  —  where  is  to  be  found  a  summary  of  the 
opinions  of  English  scholars  about  orrwr  and  6na>s  pf),  and 
the  moods  which  they  require :  and  further,  do  you  or  he 
hold  their  doctrine  good  for  anything  ?  Dawes,  and  all  men 
who  endeavor  to  establish  general  rules,  are  of  great  use  in 
directing  one's  attention  to  points  which  one  might  other- 
wise have  neglected ;  and  labor  and  acuteness  often  discover 
a  rule,  where  indolence  and  carelessness  fancied  it  was  all 
haphazard.  But  larger  induction  and  sounder  judgment 
(which  I  think  exist  in  Hermann  in  an  infinite  degree  be- 
yond any  of  our  English  scholars)  teach  us  to  distinguish 
again  between  a  principle  and  .an  usage ;  the  latter  may  be 
general,  but  if  it  be  merely  usage,  grounded  on  no  intelligi- 
ble principle,  it  seems  to  me  foolish  to  insist  on  its  being 
universal,  and  to  alter  texts  right  and  left,  to  make  them 
all  conformable  to  the  Canon.  Equidem,  —  both  in  Greek 
and  in  other  matters,  —  I  think  liberty  a  far  better  thing 
than  uniformity  of  form  merely,  where  no  principle  is  con- 
cerned. Voila  the  cloven  foot. 


XIV.      TO   J.    T.    COLERIDGE,    ESQ. 

(In  allusion  to  a  libel  in  the  John  Bull.) 

Rugby,  May  11, 1830. 

I  thank  you  for  another  very  kind  letter.  In  a  matter  of 
this  sort,  I  willingly  resign  my  own  opinion  to  that  of  a  man 
like  yourself,  at  once  my  friend  and  legal  adviser.  I  think, 
too,  that  I  am  almost  bound  to  attend  to  the  opinion  of  the 
Bishop  of  London  ;  for  his  judgment  of  the  inexpediency  of 
prosecuting  must  rest  on  the  scandal  which  he  thinks  it  will 
bring  upon  religion  and  the  Church,  and  of  this  he  is  a  far 
better  judge  than  I  am ;  nor,  to  say  the  truth,  should  I  much 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  239 

like  to  act  in  a  doubtful  matter  in  opposition  to  the  decided 
advice  of  a  Bishop  in  a  case  that  concerned  the  Church. 
I  say  this  in  sober  earnest,  in  spite  of  what  you  call  my 
Whiggery  and  Radicalism 


XV.     TO    REV.  DR.  HAWKINS. 

Rugby,  May  12,  1830. 

The  authorities  which  are  arrayed  against  pro- 
ceeding are  quite  decisive,  and  I  heartily  agree  with  you  that 
clergymen  must  not  go  to  law,  when  lawyers  say  they  should 
not.  Still,  as  I  had  no  thought  of  gam  or  of  vengeance,  but 
simply  of  procuring  a  public  justification  of  my  character  — 
not  my  opinions  —  I  feel  that  it  would  have  been  no  lack  of 
charity  to  proceed,  though  I  am  heartily  glad  to  be  spared  the 
necessity  of  doing  so  by  so  many  and  such  powerful  represen- 
tations. But  I  trust  that  you  and  all  my  friends  will  give  me 
credit  for  being  perfectly  tolerant  of  all  attacks  upon  my  writ- 
ings or  general  abuse  of  my  opinions Believe  me,  I 

am  heartily  glad  of  the  final  result  of  this  discussion,  for  I  had 
no  wish  to  go  to  law  ;  but  I  thought  that  my  known,  or  rather 
my  misrepresented  opinions  on  politics,  ought  to  make  me  par- 
ticularly anxious  to  deny  any  charge  respecting  religious  mat- 
ters. But  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  take  the  judgment  of  my 
friends  and  of  impartial  persons  in  what  rests  wholly  on  opin- 
ion ;  and  besides,  if  the  attack  or  loss  to  my  own  character 
were  ever  so  great,  I  should  quite  agree  with  you  that  it  was 
better  to  bear  it,  than  to  bring  sacred  things  into  discussion  in 
places  and  through  disputants  wholly  unfitted  for  them.  But 
this  I  at  first  did  not  contemplate  as  the  likely  result. 


XVI.    TO   F.  HARTWELL,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  June  28,  1830. 

I  have  just  published  one  volume  of  Thucydides ; 

when  the  others  will  follow,  it  is  hard  to  say,  for  the  work  here 
is  more  and  more  engrossing  continually  ;  but  I  like  it  better 
and  better ;  it  has  all  the  interest  of  a  great  game  of  chess, 
with  living  creatures  for  pawns  and  pieces,  and  your  adver- 
sary, in  plain  English,  the  Devil :  truly  he  plays  a  very  tough 
game,  and  is  very  hard  to  beat,  if  I  ever  do  beat  him.  It  is 


240  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

quite  surprising  to  see  the  wickedness  of  young  boys ;  or 
would  be  surprising,  if  I  had  not  had  my  own  school  experi- 
ence and  a  good  deal  since  to  enlighten  me. 


XVII.     TO    THE    REV.  GEORGE    CORNISH. 

Rugby,  August  24, 1830. 

Your  letter  was  a  most  welcome  sight  to  me  the  first  morn- 
ing of  my  arrival  at  home,  amidst  the  host  of  strange  hand- 
writings and  letters  of  business  which  now  greet  me  every 
morning.  It  rejoices  me  to  think  that  we  are  going  to  have 
a  cousin  of  yours  at  Rugby,  and  I  suppose  we  shall  see  him 
here  on  Saturday,  when  the  great  coach  starts.  You  know 
that  it  is  licensed  to  carry  not  exceeding  260  passengers,  be- 
sides the  foundationers.  I  agreed  with  the  Pythagoreans  that 
TO  aopurrov  was  one  of  the  number  of  Kaiea,  and  so  I  applied  to 
the  Trustees,  and  got  the  limit  set.  We  are  not  near  it  yet, 
being  not  quite  260,  including  foundationers,  and  perhaps 
may  never  reach  it ;  but  that  I  shall  not  at  all  regret,  and  all 
I  wanted  was  never  to  go  beyond  it.  We  have  got  a  Cam- 
bridge man,  a  Fellow  of  Trinity,  who  was  most  highly  recom- 
mended to  me  as  a  new  master :  and  I  hope  we  shall  pull 
hard  and  all  together  during  the  next  half-year ;  there  is 
plenty  to  be  done,  I  can  assure  you ;  but  thank  God,  I  con- 
tinue to  enjoy  the  work,  and  am  now  in  excellent  condition 

for  setting  to  it.  You  may  see  M 's  name  and  mine 

amongst  the  subscribers  for  the  sufferers  at  Paris.  It  seems 
to  me  a  most  blessed  revolution,  spotless  beyond  all  example 
in  history,  and  the  most  glorious  instance  of  a  royal  rebellion 
against  society,  promptly  and  energetically  repressed,  that  the 
world  has  yet  seen.  It  magnificently  vindicates  the  cause  of 
knowledge  and  liberty,  showing  how  humanizing  to  all  classes 
of  society  are  the  spread  of  thought  and  information,  and  im- 
proved political  institutions ;  and  it  lays  the  crimes  of  the  last 
revolution  just  in  the  right  place,  the  wicked  aristocracy,  that 
had  so  brutalized  the  people  by  its  long  iniquities  that  they 
were  like  slaves  broken  loose  when  they  first  bestirred  them- 
selves. 

Before  all  these  events  took  place,  on  my  way  out  through 
France,  I  was  reading  Guizot's  History  of  the  Progress  of 
Civilization  in  France  from  the  earliest  times.  You  know  he 
is  now  Minister  of  the  Interior,  and  one  of  the  ablest  writers 


LIFE   OF    DR.    ARNOLD.  241 

in  France.  In  his  book  he  gives  a  history  of  the  Pelagian 
controversy,  a  most  marvellous  contrast  with  the  Liberals 
of  a  former  day,  or  with  our  Westminster  Reviewers  now. 
Guizot  sides  with  St.  Augustine ;  but  the  whole  chapter  is 
most  worthy  of  notice ;  the  freedom  of  the  will,  so  far  as  to 
leave  a  consciousness  of  guilt  when  we  have  not  done  our 
duty,  —  the  corruption  of  our  nature,  which  never  lets  us  in 
fact  come  up  to  what  we  know  we  ought  to  do,  and  the  help 
derived  from  prayers  to  God,  —  are  stated  as  incontrovertible 
philosophical  facts,  of  which  every  man's  experience  may 
convince  him ;  and  Guizot  blames  Pelagius  for  so  exaggerating 
the  notion  of  human  freedom  as  to  lose  sight  of  our  need  of 
external  assistance.  And  there  is  another  chapter  on  the 
unity  of  the  Church  no  less  remarkable.  Now  Guizot  is 
Professor  of  History  in  the  University  of  Paris,  and  a  most 
eminent  Liberal ;  and  it  seems  to  me  worthy  of  all  notice  to 
observe  his  language  with  regard  to  religion.  And  I  saw 
Niebuhr  at  Bonn,  on  my  way  home,  and  talked  with  him  for 
three  hours  ;  and  I  am  satisfied  from  my  own  ears,  if  I  had 
any  doubts  before,  of  the  grossness  of  the  slander  which  called 
him  an  unbeliever.  I  was  every  way  delighted  with  him,  and 
liked  very  much  what  I  saw  of  his  wife  and  children.  Trev- 
enen  and  his  wife  enjoyed  the  journey  exceedingly,  and  are 
all  the  better  for  it.  Amongst  other  things,  I  visited  the  Grand 
Chartreuse,  which  is  certainly  enough  to  make  a  man  ro- 
mantic, and  the  Church  of  Madonna  del  Monte  ;  from  whence, 
or  rather  from  a  mountain  above  it,  I  counted  twelve  moun- 
tain outlines  between  me  and  the  horizon,  —  the  last,  the 
ridge  of  the  highest  Alps  —  upon  a  sky  so  glowing  with  the 
sunset,  that  instead  of  looking  white  from  their  snow,  they 
were  like  the  teeth  of  a  saw  upon  a  plate  of  red-hot  iron,  all 
deep  and  black.  I  was  delighted  also  with  Venice ;  most  of 
all  delighted  to  see  the  secret  prisons  of  the  old  aristocracy 
converted  into  lumber-rooms,  and  to  see  German  soldiers 
exercising  authority  in  that  place,  which  was  once  the  very 
focus  of  the  moral  degradation  of  the  Italian  race,  the  seat  of 
falsehood  and  ignorance  and  cruelty.  They  talk  of  building 
a  bridge  to  Venice  over  the  Lagune ;  if  so,  I  am  glad  that  I 
have  seen  it  first.  I  like  Padua  also,  more  than  I  thought 
I  could  have  liked  the  birthplace  of  Titus  Livius.  The  in- 
fluence of  the  clergy  must  be  gre'at  there,  and  most  beneficially 
exercised ;  for  a  large  institution  for  the  poor  of  Padua,  pro- 
viding for  those  who  are  out  of  work,  as  well  as  for  the  old 
VOL.  i.  21  p 


242  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

and  infirm,  derives  its  main  support  from  legacies  ;  the  clergy 
never  failing  to  urge  every  man  who  can  at  all  afford  it  to 
leave  something  at  his  death  for  this  object  We  came  home 
through  the  Tyrol,  and  through  Wurtemberg  and  Baden,  coun- 
tries apparently  as  peaceful  and  prosperous  and  simple  man- 
nered as  I  ever  saw ;  it  is  quite  economical  travelling  there. 
And  now,  when  shall  I  travel  to  Kenwyn  ?  I  hope  one  of 
these  days ;  but  whether  in  the  next  winter  or  not  is  hard  to 
say ;  I  only  know  that  there  are  few  things  which  I  should 
enjoy  better.  I  was  so  sorry  to  miss  old  Tucker,  who  came 
here  for  one  day  when  I  was  abroad  ;  he  was  at  Leamington 
with  his  sister  to  consult  our  great  oracle,  Jephson.  Charles, 
I  suppose,  is  only  coming  home  upon  leave,  and  will  go  out 
again ;  I  should  be  very  glad  to  see  him,  and  to  show  him 
his  marks  on  my  Hederic's  Lexicon  when  he  was  at  Wyatt's. 
I  wish  I  may  be  able  to  do  anything  for  you  as  to  a  curate, 
but  I  am  very  much  out  of  the  world  in  those  matters,  and  I 
have  no  regular  correspondence  with  Oxford.  I  am  afraid  I 
am  sadly  in  disgrace  with  all  parties,  between  my  Pamphlet 
and  Sermons,  and  I  am  afraid  that  Thucydides  will  not  mend 
the  matter.  As  for  the  Pamphlet,  that  is  all  natural  enough, 
but  I  really  did  not  think  there  was  any  cloven  foot  in  the 
Sermons,  nor  did  I  wish  to  show  any ;  not,  I  hope,  from  time- 
serving, but  because,  what  you  said  about  the  schism  ques- 
tion, I  wished  to  do  with  that  and  divers  other  points,  —  i.  e. 
reserve  them  for  a  separate  volume,  which  I  hope  I  may  be 
able  to  publish  before  I  die.  There  are  some  points  on  which 
J  feel  almost  as  if  I  had  a  testimony  to  deliver,  which  I  ought 
not  to  withhold.  And  Milman's  History  of  the  Jews  made 
me  more  and  more  eager  to  deliver  myself  of  my  conceptions. 
But  how  to  do  it  without  interfering  with  other  and  even 
more  pressing  duties,  I  cannot  tell.  Last  half-year,  I 
preached  every  Sunday  in  Lent,  and  for  the  last  five  Sundays 
of  the  half-year  also,  besides  other  times ;  and  I  had  to  write 
new  sermons  for  all  these,  for  I  cannot  bear  to  preach  to  the 
boys  anything  but  what  is  quite  fresh,  and  suggested  by  their 
particular  condition.  I  never  like  preaching  anywhere  else 
so  well  i  for  one's  boys  are  even  more  than  a  parish,  inasmuch 
as  one  knows  more  of  them  all  individually,  than  can  easily 
be  the  case  in  a  parish,  and  has  a  double  authority  over  them, 
temporal  as  well  as  spiritual Though,  to  speak  seri- 
ously, it  is  quite  awful  to  watch  the  strength  of  evil  in  such 
young  minds,  and  how  powerless  is  every  effort  against  it.  It 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  243 

would  give  the  vainest  man  alive  a  very  fair  notion  of  his  own 
insufficiency,  to  see  how  little  he  can  do,  and  how  his  most 
earnest  addresses  are  as  a  cannon-ball  on  a  bolster  ;  thorough 
careless  unimpressibleness  beats  one  all  to  pieces.  And  so  it 
is,  and  so  it  will  be  ;  and,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  can 
quite  say  that  it  is  much  better  that  it  should  be  so ;  for  it 
would  be  too  kindling,  could  one  perceive  these  young  minds 
really  led  from  evil  by  one's  own  efforts  ;  one  would  be  sorely 
tempted  to  bow  down  to  one's  own  net.  As  it  is,  the  net  is  so 
palpably  ragged,  that  one  sees  perforce  how  sorry  an  idol  it 
would  make.  But  I  must  go  to  bed,  and  spare  your  eyes  and 
your  patience. 

XYIII.      TO   REV.   DK.  HAWKINS. 

Rugby,  November,  1830. 

I  am  always  glad  to  write  to  you,  but  I  have  now  two 
especial  causes  for  doing  so  ;  one  to  thank  you  for  your  Visi- 
tation sermon,  and  another  to  explain  to  you  why  I  do  not 
think  it  right  to  comply  with  your  wishes  touching  the  tricolor 
work-bag.  For  your  sermon,  I  thank  you  for  it ;  I  believe 
I  agree  with  it  almost  entirely,  waiving  some  expressions, 
which  I  hold  one  never  should  cavil  about,  where  one  agrees 
in  substance.  But  have  you  ever  clearly  defined  to  yourself 
what  you  mean  by  "one  society,"  as  applied  to  the  whole 
Christian  Church  upon  earth  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  most  of 
what  I  consider  the  errors  about  "  the  Church,"  turn  upon  an 
imperfect  understanding  of  this  point.  In  one  sense,  and  that 
a  very  important  one,  all  Christians  belong  to  one  society ; 
but  then  it  is  more  like  Cicero's  sense  of  "  societas,"  than 
what  we  mean  by  a  society.  There  is  a  "societas  generis 
humani,"  and  a  "  societas  hominum  Christianorum ; "  but 
there  is  not  one  "  respublica  "  or  "  civitas  "  of  either,  but  a 
great  many.  The  Roman  Catholics  say  there  is  but  one 
"respublica,"  and  therefore,  with  perfect  consistency,  they 
say  that  there  must  be  one  central  government :  our  Article, 
if  I  mistake  not  its  sense,  says,  and  with  great  truth,  that  the 
Christian  Respublica  depends  on  the  political  Respublica ; 
that  is,  that  there  may  be  at  least  as  many  Christian  societies 
as  there  are  political  societies,  and  that  there  may  be,  and  in 
our  own  kingdom  are,  even  more.*  If  there  be  one  Christian 

*  See  Appendix  II.  \d)  to  Fragment  on  the  Church. 


244  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

society,  in  the  common  sense  of  the  word,  there  must  be  one 
government:  whereas,  in  point  of  fact,  the  Scotch  Church, 
the  English  Church,  and  the  French  Church,  have  all  sepa- 
rate and  perfectly  independent  governments  ;  and  conse- 
quently can  only  be  in  an  unusual  and  peculiar  sense  "  one 
society ; "  that  is,  spiritually  one,  as  having  the  same  objects 
and  the  same  principles,  and  the  same  supports,  and  the 
same  enemies.  You  therefore  seem  to  me  right,  in  saying 
that  a  Roman  Catholic  should  be  addressed  in  England  as  a 
Dissenter ;  but  all  this  appears  to  me  to  lead  necessarily  to 
tliis  conclusion,  —  that  the  constitution  and  government  of 
every  Church  is  a  political  institution,  and  that  conformity 
and  nonconformity  are  so  far  matters  of  civil  law,  that,  where 
nonconformity,  as  in  England,  is  strictly  legal,  it  is  no  offence, 
except  in  so  far  as  it  may  be  accompanied  with  heretical 
opinions,  which  is  merely  KOTO.  a-v^f^Kos.  For  the  State 
says  that  there  may  be  any  given  number  of  religious  socie- 
ties within  its  jurisdiction  —  societies,  that  is,  in  .the  common 
sense  of  the  term,  as  bodies  governing  themselves ;  and  it  is 
clear  that  the  State  may  lawfully  say  this,  for,  if  the  Church 
were  one  society,  in  this  sense,  by  Christ's  institution,  then 
the  Romanist  doctrine  would  be  true,  and,  I  do  not  say  the 
Pope,  but  certainly  a  General  Council  would  possess  an 
authority  paramount  in  ecclesiastical  matters,  payment  of 
tithes,  &c.,  to  any  local  and  human  authority  of  Kings  or 
Parliaments  of  this  or  that  political  division  of  the  human 
race.  I  have  thought  not  a  little  upon  all  this  matter  in  my 
time,  and  I  fancy  that  I  see  my  own  way  straight ;  whether 
other  people  will  think  so,  is  a  different  question. 

(After  explaining  a  false  report  about  a  tricolored  cockade 
and  work-bag.)  It  is  worse  than  obnoxious  to  apply  this  to 
English  politics,  and  if  any  man  seriously  considers  me  to 
wish  for  a  revolution  here,  with  my  seven  children  and  good 
house  to  lose,  (to  put  it  on  no  other  ground,)  why  he  must 
even  continue  to  think  so.  But  I  do  admire  the  Revolution 
in  France  —  admire  it  as  heartily  and  entirely,  as  any  event 
recorded  in  history ;  and  I  think  that  it  becomes  every  individ- 
ual, still  more  every  clergyman,  and  most  of  all,  every  clergy- 
man in  a  public  situation,  to  express  this  opinion  publicly  and 
decidedly.  I  have  not  forgotten  the  twenty  years'  war  into 
which  the  English  aristocracy  and  clergy  drove  Mr.  Pitt  in 
1793,  and  which  the  Quarterly  Review  and  other  such  writers 
are  now  seeking  to  repeat.  I  hold  it  to  be  of  incalculable 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  245 

importance,  that,  while  the  conduct  of  France  has  been  beyond 
all  example  pure  and  heroic,  there  should  be  so  manifest  a 
display  of  sympathy  on  the  part  of  England,  as  to  lead  to  a 
real  mutual  confidence  and  friendship  between  the  two  coun- 
tries. Our  government,  I  believe,  is  heartily  disposed  to  do 
this,  and  I  will  not,  for  one,  shrink  from  avowing  a  noble 
cause  and  a  noble  nation,  because  a  party  in  England,  joined 
through  timidity  by  a  number  of  men  who  have  really  no 
sympathy  with  it,  choose  to  try  to  excommunicate  all  who  will 
not  join  them.  I  have  myself  heard  them  expressing  hearty 
approbation  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  yet  shrink  from 
avowing  it,  lest  they  should  appear  to  join  the  Radicals.  And 
thus  they  leave  the  Radicals  in  exclusive  possession  of  senti- 
ments, which  they  themselves  join  in,  just  as  they  would 
leave  the  Useful  Knowledge  Society  to  the  Benthamites.  I 
quarrel  with  no  man  for  disapproving  of  the  revolution,  except 
he  does  it  in  such  a  manner  as  to  excite  national  animosities, 
and  so  tend  to  provoke  a  war ;  but  in  a  case  so  flagrant  —  a 
case  of  as  clear  right  as  the  abolition  of  the  slave-trade  —  it  is 
clearly  not  for  the  friends  of  France  to  suppress  or  conceal 
their  sentiments.  About  Belgium  the  case  is  wholly  different : 
there,  the  merits  of  the  quarrel  are  far  more  doubtful,  and 
the  conduct  of  the  popular  party  far  less  pure ;  and  there  I 
have  no  sympathy  with  the  Belgians.  But  France,  if  it  were 
only  for  the  contrast  to  the  first  revolution,  deserves,  I  think, 
the  warmest  admiration,  and  the  most  cordial  expression  of  it. 
I  have  written  now  more  upon  this  subject  than  I  have  either 
written  or  spoken  upon  it  before  to  any  one;  for  indeed  I 
have  very  little  time,  and  no  inclination  for  disputes  on  such 
matters.  But  if  I  am  questioned  about  my  opinions,  and 
required  to  conceal  them,  as  if  I  were  ashamed  of  them,  I 
think  it  right  then  to  avow  them  plainly,  and  to  explain  my 
reasons  for  them.  There  is  not  a  man  in  England  who  is  less 
a  party  man  thau  I  am,  for  in  fact  no  party  would  own  me ; 

and  when  I  was  at  's  in  the  summer,  he  looked  upon 

me  to  be  quite  illiberal.  But  those  who  hold  their  own 
opinions  in  a  string,  will  suppose  that  their  neighbors  do  the 
same. 


246  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

LIFE    AND    CORRESPONDENCE,    SEPTEMBER,    1830,    TO 
DECEMBER,    1832. 

PERHAPS  no  more  striking  instance  of  his  deep  inter- 
est in  the  state  of  the  country  could  be  found,  than  in 
the  gloom  with  which  his  correspondence  is  suddenly 
overcast  in  the  autumn  of  1830.  The  alarming  aspect 
of  English  society  brought  to  view  in  the  rural  disturb- 
ances in  the  winter  of  1830,  and  additionally  darkened 
in  1831  -  32,  by  the  visitation  of  the  Cholera,  and  the 
political  agitations  of  the  Reform  Bill,  little  as  it  came 
within  his  own  experience,  gave  a  color  to  his  whole 
mind.  Of  his  state  of  feeling  at  this  time,  no  better 
example  can  be  given  than  the  five  sermons  appended 
to  the  opening  course  of  his  practical  school  sermons, 
in  his  second  volume,  especially  the  last  of  them,  which 
was  preached  in  the  chapel  on  the  Sunday  when  the 
news  of  the  arrival  of  the  Cholera  in  England  first 
reached  Rugby.  There  are  those  amongst  his  pupils 
who  can  never  forget  the  moment  when,  on  that  dark 
November  afternoon,  after  the  simple  preface,  stating 
in  what  sense  worldly  thoughts  were  or  were  not  to  be 
brought  into  that  place,  he  at  once  began  with  that 
solemnity  which  marked  his  voice  and  manner  when 
speaking  of  what  deeply  moved  him  :  "  I  need  not  tell 
you  that  this  is  a  marked  time — a  time  such  as  neither 
we,  nor  our  fathers  for  many  generations  before  us, 
have  experienced  ;  and  to  those  who  know  what  the 
past  has  been,  it  is  no  doubt  awful  to  think  of  the 
change  which  we  are  now  about  to  encounter." 
(Serm.  vol.  ii.  p.  413.)  But  in  him  the  sight  of  evil, 
and  the  endeavor  to  remove  it,  were  hardly  ever  dis- 
joined ;  and  whilst  everything  which  he  felt  partook 
of  the  despondency  with  which  that  sermon  opens, 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  247 

everything  which,  he  did  partakes  of  that  cheerful  ac- 
tivity with  which  the  same  sermon  closes,  in  urging 
the  example  of  the  Apostle's  "  wise  and  manly  con- 
duct amidst  the  dangers  of  storm  and  shipwreck." 

The  alarm  which  he  felt  was  shared  by  many  of  the 
most  opposite  opinions  to  his  own;  but  there  could 
have  been  few  whom  it  touched  at  once  on  so  many 
points.  The  disturbances  of  the  time  were  to  him  the 
very  evils  which  he  had  anticipated  even  as  far  back 
as  1819  ;  they  struck  on  some  of  the  most  sensitive  of 
his  natural  feelings  —  his  sense  of  justice,  and  his  im- 
patience of  the  sight  of  suffering  :  they  seemed  to  him 
symptoms  of  a  deep-seated  disease  in  all  the  relations 
of  English  society  —  the  results  of  a  long  series  of 
evils  from  the  neglect  of  the  eighteenth  century  —  of 
the  lawlessness  of  the  feudal  system  —  of  the  oppres- 
sions of  the  Norman  conquest  —  of  the  dissoluteness 
of  the  Roman  empire  —  of  the  growth  of  those  social 
and  national  sins  which  the  Hebrew  Prophets  had  de- 
nounced, and  which  Christianity  in  its  full  practical 
development  was  designed  to  check.* 

Hence  arose  his  anxiety  to  see  the  clergy  take  it  up, 
as  he  had  himself  endeavored  to  do  in  the  sermons 
already  noticed. 

"  I  almost  despair,"  he  said,  "  of  anything  that  any  private 
or  local  efforts  can  do.  I  think  that  the  clergy  as  a  body 
might  do  much,  if  they  were  steadily  to  observe  the  evils  of 
the  times,  and  preach  fearlessly  against  them.  I  cannot 
understand  what  is  the  good  of  a  national  Church  if  it  be  not 
to  Christianize  the  nation,  and  introduce  the  principles  of 
Christianity  into  men's  social  and  civil  relations,  and  expose 
the  wickedness  of  that  spirit  which  maintains  the  game-laws, 
and  in  agriculture  and  trade  seems  to  think  that  there  is  no 
such  sin  as  covetousness,  and  that  if  a  man  is  not  dishonest, 
he  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  make  all  the  profit  of  his  capital 
that  he  can." 

Hence,  again,  his  anxiety  to  impart  or  see  imparted 


S«e  Miscell.  Works,  pp.  176,  192,  276.     Hist,  of  Rome,  I.  266. 


248  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

to  the  publications  of  the  Society  for  the  Diffusion  of 
Useful  Knowledge,  then  in  the  first  burst  of  their 
reputation,  and  promising  to  exercise  a  really  exten- 
sive influence  on  the  country  at  large,  something  of 
the  religious  spirit,  in  which  they  seemed  to  him  to  be 
deficient. 

"  I  am  not  wishing  to  see  the  Society's  tracts  turned  into 
sermons,  —  far  less  to  see  them  intermeddle  in  what  are 
strictly  theological  controversies;  —  but  I  am  sure  that,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Unitarians,  all  Christians  have  a  common 
ground  in  all  that  is  essential  in  Christianity,  and  beyond 
that  I  never  wish  to  go  ;  —  and  it  does  seem  to  me  as  forced 
and  unnatural  in  us  now  to  dismiss  the  principles  of  the 
Gospel  and  its  great  motives  from  our  consideration,  —  as  is 
done  habitually,  for  example,  in  Miss  Edgeworth's  books,  — 
as  it  is  to  fill  our  pages  with  Hebraisms,  and  to  write  and 
speak  in  the  words  and  style  of  the  Bible.  The  slightest 
touches  of  Christian  principle  and  Christian  hope  in  the 
Society's  biographical  and  historical  articles  would  be  a  sort 
of  living  salt  to  the  whole  ;  —  and  would  exhibit  that  union 
which  I  never  will  consent  to  think  unattainable,  between 
goodness  and  wisdom  ;  — between  everything  that  is  manly, 
sensible,  and  free,  and  everything  that  is  pure  and  self-deny- 
ing, and  humble,  and  heavenly." 

His  communications  with  the  Society,  made,  how- 
ever, from  the  nature  of  the  case,  rather  through  indi- 
viduals than  officially,  were  at  one  time  frequent ;  and 
though,  from  the  different  view  which  it  took  of  its 
proper  province,  he  was  finally  induced  to  discontinue 
them,  he  felt  great  reluctance  in  abandoning  his  hope 
of  being  able  to  co-operate  with  a  body  which  he  "  be- 
lieved might,  with  God's  blessing,  do  more  good  of  all 
kinds,  political,  intellectual,  and  spiritual,  than  any 
other  society  in  existence." 

"There  was  a  show  of  reason,"  he  said,  "in  excluding 
Christianity  from  the  plan  of  the  Society's  works,  so  long  as 
they  avowedly  confined  themselves  to  science  or  to  intellectual 
instruction :  but  in  a  paper  intended  to  improve  its  readers 
morally,  to  make  men  better  and  happier,  as  well  as  better 
informed,  surely  neutrality  with  regard  to  Christianity  is, 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  249 

virtually,  hostility."  "For  myself,"  he  adds,  "I  am  well 
aware  of  my  own  insignificance,  but  if  there  were  no  other 
objection  to  the  Penny  Magazine  assuming  a  decidedly 
Christian  tone,  than  mere  difficulties  of  execution,  I  would 
most  readily  offer  my  best  services,  such  as  they  are,  to  the 
Society,  and  would  endeavor  to  furnish  them  regularly  with 
articles  of  the  kind  that  I  desire.  My  occupations  here  are 
so  engrossing,  that  it  would  be  personally  very  inconvenient 
to  me  to  do  so ;  and  I  am  not  so  absurd  as  to  think  my  offer 
of  any  value,  except  in  the  single  case  of  a  practical  difficulty 
existing  as  to  finding  a  writer,  should  the  principle  itself  be 
approved  of.  I  am  fully  convinced  that  if  the  Penny  Maga- 
zine were  decidedly  and  avowedly  Christian,  many  of  the 
clergy  throughout  the  kingdom  would  be  most  delighted  to 
assist  its  circulation  by  every  means  in  their  power.  For 
myself,  I  should  think  that  I  could  not  do  too  much  to  con- 
tribute to  the  support  of  what  would  then  be  so  great  a 
national  blessing ;  and  I  should  beg  to  be  allowed  to  offer 
£  50  annually  towards  it,  so  long  as  my  remaining  in  my 
present  situation  enabled  me  to  gratify  my  inclinations  to 
that  extent" 

The  most  practical  attempt  at  the  realization  of 
these  views,  was  his  own  endeavor  to  set  up  a  weekly 
newspaper,  the  Englishman's  Register,  which  he  under- 
took in  1831,  "  more  to  relieve  his  own  conscience 
than  with  any  sanguine  hope  of  doing  good,"  but 
"  earnestly  desiring  to  speak  to  the  people  the  words 
of  truth  and  soberness  —  to  tell  them  plainly  the  evils 
that  exist,  and  lead  them,  if  I  can,  to  their  causes  and 
their  remedies."  He  was  the  proprietor,  though  not 
the  sole  editor,  and  he  contributed  the  chief  articles  in  ' 
it  (signed  A.),  consisting  chiefly  of  explanations  of 
Scripture,  and  of  comments  on  the  political  events  of 
the  day.  It  died  a  natural  death  in  a  few  weeks, 
partly  from  his  want  of  leisure  to  control  it  properly, 
and  from  the  great  expenses  which  it  entailed  upon 
him  —  partly  from  the  want  of  cordial  sympathy  in 
any  of  the  existing  parties  of  the  country.  Finding, 
however,  that  some  of  his  articles  had  been  copied  into 
the  Sheffield  Couraut,  by  its  editor,  Mr.  Platt,  he 


250  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

opened  a  communication  with  him  in  July,  1831, 
which  he  maintained  ever  afterwards,  and  commenced 
writing  a  series  of  Letters  in  that  paper,  which,  to  the 
number  of  thirteen,  were  afterwards  published  sepa- 
rately, and  constitute  the  best  exposition  of  his  views 
on  the  main  causes  of  social  distress  in  England. 

It  was  now  that,  with  "  the  thirst  for  a  lodge  in 
some  vast  wilderness,  which  in  these  times  of  excite- 
ment," he  writes  to  a  friend,  "  is  almost  irresistible," 
he  began  to  turn  his  thoughts  to  what  ultimately  be- 
came his  home  in  Westmoreland.  It  was  now,  also, 
that  as  he  came  more  into  contact  with  public  affairs, 
he  began  to  feel  the  want  of  sympathy  and  the  oppo- 
sition which  he  subsequently  experienced  on  a  larger 
scale.  "  I  have  no  man  like-minded  with  me,"  he 
writes  to  Archbishop  Whately,  —  "  none  with  whom  I 
can  cordially  sympathize  ;  there  are  many  good  men 
to  be  found,  and  many  clever  men,  some,  too,  who  are 
both  good  and  clever  ;  but  yet  there  is  a  want  of  some 
greatness  of  mind,  or  singleness  of  purpose,  or  deli- 
cacy of  feeling,  which  makes  them  grate  against  the 
edge  of  one's  inner  man."  This  was  the  period  when 
he  felt  most  keenly  his  differences  with  the  so-called 
Evangelical  party,  to  which,  on  the  one  hand,  he  natu- 
rally looked  for  co-operation,  as  the  body  which  at  that 
time  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  religious  convic- 
tions of  the  country,  but  from  which,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  was  constantly  repelled  by  his  strong  sense  of 
the  obstacles  which  (as  he  thought)  their  narrow 
views  and  technical  phraseology,  were  forever  oppos- 
ing to  the  real  and  practical  application  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament,  as  the  remedy  of  the  great  wants  of 
the  age,  social,  moral,  and  intellectual.* 


#  In'  illustration  of  this  view  as  represented  in  the  present  chapter,  it  may 
be  well  to  refer  to  Introd.  to  Serm.  vol.  iv.  p.  xxv.,  and  to  give  the  following 
extract  from  a  MS.  Preface  to  a  volume  of  Sermons  in  1829.  "  Their 
peculiarities  as  a  party  seem  to  me  to  arise  simply  from  these  causes,  —  a 
good  Christian,  with  a  low  understanding,  a  bad  education,  and  ignorance 
of  the  world,  becomes  an  Evangelical, —  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  if  you 
were  to  enlarge  the  understanding  of  an  Evangelical,  if  you  could  remedy 


LIFE   OF   DK.  ARNOLD.  251 

It  was  his  own  conviction  of  these  wants  which  now 
more  than  ever  awakened  his  desire  for  a  commentary 
on  the  Scriptures  which  should  explain  their  true  ref- 
erence to  the  present  state  of  England  and  of  the 
world,  as  well  as  remove  some  of  the  intellectual  diffi- 
culties, especially  in  the  Old  Testament,  to  which 
men's  minds  seemed  to  be  growing  more  and  more 
awake.  And  this,  for  the  time,  he  endeavored  to  ac- 
complish by  the  statement  of  some  of  his  general  prin- 
ciples of  interpretation  in  the  Essay  on  that  subject, 
which  he  affixed  to  his  second  volume  of  sermons  pub- 
lished in  December,  1831.  The  objections  which  this 
Essay  excited  at  the  time  in  various  quarters  were 
very  great,  and  according  to  his  own  belief  it  exposed 
him  to  more  misunderstanding  than  any  other  of  his 
writings.  But  he  never  wavered  in  the  conviction 
that  its  publication  had  been  an  imperative  duty  —  it 
was  written,  as  he  said,  "  professionally,  from  his  hav- 
ing had  so  much  to  do  with  young  men,  and  from 
knowing  what  they  wanted ; "  even  in  the  last  year  of 
his  life,  he  said  that  he  looked  upon  it  as  the  most 
important  thing  he  had  ever  written.  "  I  thought  it 
likely,"  he  writes  at  the  time  to  a  friend,  "  with  God's 
blessing,  to  be  so  beneficial,  that  I  published  it  at  the 
end  of  this  volume,  rather  than  wait  for  another  op- 
portunity, because  under  that  sense  of  the  great  un- 
certainty of  human  life  which  the  present  state  of 
things  brings  especially  home  to  my  mind,  I  should  be 
sorry  to  die  without  having  circulated  what  I  believe 
will  be  to  many  most  useful  and  most  satisfactory." 
"  I  am  sure,"  he  writes,  in  answer  to  the  objections  of 
another  friend,  "  that  the  more  the  subject  is  consid- 
ered, men  will  find  that  they  have  been  afraid  of  a 
groundless  danger,  and  the  further  I  follow  up  my 
own  views,  the  more  they  appear  to  me  to  harmonize 
with  the  whole  system  of  God's  revelations,  and  not 

the  defects  of  his  education,  and  supply  him  with  abupdant  knowledge  of 
men  and  things,  he  would  then  become  a  most  complete  specimen  of  a  true 
Christian. 


252  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

only  absolutely  to  do  away  with  all  the  difficulties  of 
the  Scriptures,  but  to  turn  many  of  them  into  valuable 
instructions."  * 


XIX.      TO   J.    T.    COLERIDGE,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  November  1, 1830. 

It  is  quite  high  time  that  I  should  write  to  you,  for  weeks 
and  months  go  by,  and  it  is  quite  startling  to  think  how  little 
communication  I  hold  with  many  of  those  whom  I  love  most 
dearly.  And  yet  these  are  times  when  I  am  least  of  all  dis- 
posed to  loosen  the  links  which  bind  me  to  my  oldest  and 
dearest  friends,  for  I  imagine  we  shall  all  want  the  union  of 
all  the  good  men  we  can  get  together ;  and  the  want  of  sym- 
pathy which  I  cannot  but  feel  towards  so  many  of  those  whom 
I  meet  with,  makes  me  think  how  delightful  it  would  be  to 
have  daily  intercourse  with  those  with  whom  I  ever  feel  it 
thoroughly.  What  men  do  in  middle  life  without  a  wife  and 
children  to  turn  to  I  cannot  imagine ;  for  I  think  the  affections 
must  be  sadly  checked  and  chilled,  even  in  the  best  men,  by 
their  intercourse  with  people,  such  as  one  usually  finds  them 
in  the  world.  I  do  not  mean  that  one  does  not  meet  with 
good  and  sensible  people  ;  but  then  their  minds  are  set,  and 
our  minds  are  set,  and  they  will  not,  in  mature  age,  grow  into 
each  other.  But  with  a  home  filled  with  those  whom  we 
entirely  love  and  sympathize  with,  and  with  some  old  friends, 
to  whom  one  can  open  one's  heart  fully  from  time  to  time,  the 
world's  society  has  rather  a  bracing  influence  to  make  one 
shake  off  mere  dreams  of  delight.  You  must  not  think  me 
bilious  or  low-spirited ;  —  I  never  felt  better  or  more  inclined 
to  work ;  —  but  one  gets  pathetic  with  thinking  of  the  present 
and  the  past,  and  of  the  days  and  the  people  that  you  and  I 
have  seen  together,  and  of  the  progress  which  we  have  all 
made  towards  eternity ;  for  I,  who  am  nearly  the  youngest  of 
our  old  set,  have  completed  half  my  threescore  and  ten  years. 
Besides,  the  aspect  of  the  times  is  really  to  my  mind  awful : 
—  on  one  side  a  party  profaning  the  holiest  names  by  the 
lowest  principles,  and  the  grossest  selfishness  and  ignorance, 

*  Some  of  the  points  touched  upon  in  this  Essay  are  enlarged  upon  in 
his  Sermons  —  that  on  "the  Lord's  Day."  in  the  third  volume,  and  those  on 
H  Phinehas,"  "  Jael,"  and  "  the  Disobedient  Prophet,"  in  the  sixth. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 


—  on  the  other,  a  party  who  seem  likely  KOKOV  icana  Ia<r6cu,  who 
disclaim  and  renounce  even  the  very  name  of  that,  whose 
spirit  their  adversaries  have  long  renounced  equally.  If  I 
had  two  necks,  1  should  think  that  I  had  a  very  good  chance 
of  being  hanged  by  both  sides,  as  I  think  I  shall  now  by 
whichever  gets  the  better,  if  it  really  does  come  to  a  fight. 
I  read  now,  with  the  deepest  sympathy,  those  magnificent 
lines  of  your  uncle's,  on  the  departed  year,  and  am  myself,  in 
fact,  experiencing  some  portion  of  the  abuse  which  he  met 
with  from  the  same  party  ;  while,  like  him,  I  feel  utterly 
unable  to  shelter  myself  in  the  opposite  party,  whose  hopes 
and  principles  are  such  as  I  shrink  from  with  abhorrence. 
So  what  Thucydides  says  of  TO.  pea-a  T£>V  iro\ira>v  often  rises 
upon  my  mind  as  a  promising  augury  of  my  future  exaltation, 
rj  TTOV  irpb  NeaTrvXTjf  aimprjdevTos,  fj  epovye  irpb  Povy/3etas. 

November  3d.  —  I  wrote  these  two  sides  in  school  on  Mon- 
day, and  I  hope  to  finish  the  rest  of  my  letter  this  evening, 
while  my  boys  are  translating  into  Latin  from  my  English 
that  magnificent  part  in  the  De  Oratore  about  the  death  of 
Crassus.  I  see  I  have  given  you  enough  of  discourse  on 
things  in  general  —  I  will  only  add  one  thing  more  ;  that  I 
know  there  are  reports  in  Oxford  of  my  teaching  the  boys 
my  politics,  and  setting  revolutionary  themes.  If  you  hear 
these  reports,  will  you  contradict  them  flatly  ?  I  never  dis- 
guise or  suppress  my  opinions,  but  I  have  been  and  am  most 
religiously  careful  not  to  influence  my  boys  with  them  ;  and  I 
have  just  now  made  them  begin  Russell's  Modern  Europe 
again,  because  we  were  come  to  the  period  of  the  French 
Revolution,  and  I  did  not  choose  to  enter  upon  that  subject 
with  them.  As  to  the  revolutionary  themes,  I  cannot  even 
imagine  the  origin  of  so  absurd  a  falsehood,  except  it  be  that 
one  of  my  subjects  last  half-year  was  "  the  particular  evils 
which  civilized  society  is  exposed  to,  as  opposed  to  savage 
life,"  which  I  gave  for  the  purpose  of  clearing  their  notions 
about  luxury,  and  the  old  declamations  about  Scythian  sim- 
plicity, &c.  ;  but  I  suppose  that  I  am  thought  to  have  a  long- 
ing for  the  woods,  and  an  impatience  of  the  restraint  of 
breeches.  It  is  really  too  great  a  folly  to  be  talked  of  as  a 
revolutionist,  with  a  family  of  seven  young  children,  and  a 
house  and  income  that  I  should  be  rather  puzzled  to  match 
in  America,  if  I  were  obliged  to  change  my  quarters.  My 
quarrel  with  the  anti-liberal  party  is,  that  they  are  going  the 
way  to  force  my  children  to  America,  and  to  deprive  me  and 

VOL.  i.  22 


254  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

every  one  else  of  property,  station,  and  all  the  inestimable 
benefits  of  society  in  England.  There  is  nothing  so  revolu- 
tionary, because  there  is  nothing  so  unnatural  and  so  convul- 
sive to  society  as  the  strain  to  keep  things  fixed,  when  all  the 
world  is  by  the  very  law  of  its  creation  in  eternal  progress ; 
and  the  cause  of  all  the  evils  of  the  world  may  be  traced  to 
that  natural  but  most  deadly  error  of  human  indolence  and 
corruption,  that  our  business  is  to  preserve  and  not  to  improve. 
It  is  the  ruin  of  us  all  alike,  individuals,  schools,  and  nations. 


XX.       TO    HIS    SISTER    SUSANNAH    ARNOLD. 

Rugby,  November,  1830. 

The  paramount  interest  of  public  affairs  outweighs  with  me 
even  the  school  itself;  and  I  think  not  unreasonably,  for 
school  and  all  would  go  to  the  dogs,  if  the  convulsion  which 
I  dread  really  comes  to  pass.  I  must  write  a  pamphlet  in 
the  holidays,  or  I  shall  burst. 

No  one  seems  to  me  to  understand  our  dangers,  or  at  least 
to  speak  them  out  manfully.  One  good  man,  who  sent  a 
letter  to  the  Times  the  other  day,  recommends  that  the  clergy 
should  preach  subordination  and  obedience.  I  seriously  say, 
God  forbid  they  should ;  for,  if  any  earthly  thing  could  ruin 
Christianity  in  England,  it  would  be  this.  If  they  read  Isaiah 
and  Jeremiah  and  Amos  and  Habakkuk,  they  will  find  that 
the  Prophets,  in  a  similar  state  of  society  in  Judea,  did  not 
preach  subordination  only  or  chiefly,  but  they  denounced 
oppression,  and  amassing  overgrown  properties,  and  grinding 
the  laborers  to  the  smallest  possible  pittance ;  and  they  de- 
nounced the  Jewish  high-church  party  for  countenancing  all 
these  iniquities,  and  prophesying  smooth  things  to  please  the 
aristocracy.  If  the  clergy  would  come  forward  as  one  man 
from  Cumberland  to  Cornwall,  exhorting  peaceableness  on 
the  one  side,  and  justice  on  the  other,  denouncing  the  high 
rents  and  the  game  laws,  and  the  carelessness  which  keeps 
the  poor  ignorant,  and  then  wonders  that  they  are  brutal,  I 
verily  believe  they  might  yet  save  themselves  and  the  state. 
But  the  truth  is  that  we  are  living  amongst  a  population 
whom  we  treat  with  all  the  haughtiness  and  indifference  that 
we  could  treat  slaves,  whom  we  allow  to  be  slaves  in  igno- 
rance, without  having  them  chained  and  watched  to  prevent 
them  from  hurting  us.  I  only  wish  you  could  read  Arthur 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  255 

Young's  Travels  in  France  in  1789  and  1790,  and  see  what 
he  says  of  the  general  outbreak  then  of  the  peasantry,  when 
they  burnt  the  chateaux  all  over  France,  and  ill-used  the 
families  of  the  proprietors,  and  then  compare  the  orderliness 
of  the  French  populace  now.  It  speaks  volumes  for  small 
subdivided  properties,  general  intelligence,  and  an  absence 
of  aristocratical  manners  and  distinctions.  We  know  that,  in 
the  first  revolution,  to  be  seen  in  decent  clothes  was  at  one 
time  a  sure  road  to  the  guillotine ;  so  bitter  was  the  hatred 
engendered  in  a  brute  population  against  those  who  had  gone 
on  in  luxury  and  refinement,  leaving  their  poorer  neighbors 
to  remain  in  the  ignorance  and  wretchedness  of  savages,  and 
therefore  with  the  ferocity  of  savages  also.  The  dissolution 
of  the  ministry  may  do  something;  but  the  evil  exists  in 
every  parish  in  England ;  and  there  should  be  a  reform  in 
the  ways  and  manners  of  every  parish  to  cure  it.  We  have 
got  up  a  dispensary  here,  and  I  am  thinking  of  circulating 
small  tracts  a  la  Cobbett  in  point  of  style,  to  show  the  people 
the  real  state  of  things  and  their  causes.  Half  the  truth 
might  be  of  little  use,  but  ignorance  of  all  the  truth  is  something 
fearful,  and  a  knowledge  of  the  whole  truth  would,  I  am  con- 
vinced, do  nothing  but  pacify,  because  the  fault  of  the  rich 
has  been  a  sin  of  ignorance  and  thoughtlessness ;  they  have 
only  done  what  the  poor  would  have  done  in  their  places, 
because  few  men's  morality  rises  higher  than  to  take  care  of 
themselves,  abstaining  from  actual  wrong  to  others.  So  you 

have  got  a  long  sermon.     showed  me  a  copy  of  the 

Record  newspaper,  a  true  specimen  of  the  party,  with  their 
infinitely  little  minds,  disputing  about  anise  and  cummin,  when 
heaven  and  earth  are  coming  together  around  them ;  with 
much  of  Christian  harmlessness,  I  do  not  deny,  but  with 
nothing  of  Christian  wisdom ;  and  these  are  times  when  the 
dove  can  ill  spare  the  addition  of  the  serpent  The  state  of 
affairs,  therefore,  keeps  me  doubtful  about  going  from  home 
in  the  holidays,  because,  if  there  is  likely  to  be  any  opening 
for  organizing  any  attempts  at  general  reform,  I  should  not 
like  to  be  away  from  my  post.  But  the  interest  is  too  in- 
tense, and  makes  me  live  ten  lives  in  one  every  day.  How- 
ever, I  am  very  well,  and  perfectly  comfortable  as  far  as 
regards  family  and  school. 


256  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

XXI.      TO    REV.    AUGUSTUS    HAKE. 

•  December  24,  1830. 

I  have  longed  very  much  to  see  you,  over  and 

above  my  general  wish  that  we  could  meet  oftener,  ever  since 
this  fearful  state  of  our  poor  has  announced  itself  even  to  the 
blindest.  My  dread  is,  that  when  the  special  Commissions 
shall  have  done  their  work,  (necessary  and  just  I  most  cor- 
dially agree  with  you  that  it  is,)  the  richer  classes  will  again 
re!r.nsc  into  their  old  callousness,  and  the  seeds  be  sown  of 
a  far  more  deadly  and  irremediable  quarrel  hereafter.  If 
you  can  get  Arthur  Young's  Travels  in  France,  I  think  you 
will  be  greatly  struck  with  their  applicability  to  our  own 
times  and  country.  He  shows  how  deadly  was  the  hatred  of 
the  peasantry  towards  the  lords,  and  how  in  1789  the  cha- 
teaux were  destroyed,  and  the  families  of  the  gentry  insulted, 
from  a  common  feeling  of  hatred  to  all  who  had  made  them- 
selves and  the  poor  two  orders,  and  who  were  now  to  pay  the 
penalty  of  having  put  asunder  what  God  had  joined.  At  this 
moment  Carlisle  tells  the  poor  that  they  and  the  rich  are 
enemies,  and  that  to  destroy  the  property  of  an  enemy,  whether 
by  fire  or  otherwise,  is  always  lawful  in  war  —  a  Devil's 
doctrine,  certainly,  and  devilishly  applied  ;  but  unquestionably 
our  aristocratical  manners  and  habits  have  made  us  and  the 
poor  two  distinct  and  unsympathizing  bodies  ;  and  from  want 
of  sympathy,  I  fear  the  transition  to  enmity  is  but  too  easy 
when  distress  embitters  the  feelings,  and  the  sight  of  others 
in  luxury  makes  that  distress  still  more  intolerable.  This  is 
the  plague-spot  to  my  mind  in  our  whole  state  of  society, 
which  must  be  removed,  or  the  whole  must  perish.  And 
under  God  it  is  for  the  clergy  to  come  forward  boldly,  and 
begin  to  combat  it.  If  you  read  Isaiah,  chap.  v.  iii.  xxxii. ; 
Jeremiah,  chap.  v.  xxii.  xxx.;  Amos,  iv. ;  Habakkuk,  ii. ;  and 
the  Epistle  of  St.  James,  written  to  the  same  people  a  little 
before  the  second  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  you  will  be  struck, 
I  think,  with  the  close  resemblance  of  our  own  state  to  that 
of  the  Jews ;  while  the  state  of  the  Greek  Churches  to  whom 
St.  Paul  wrote  is  wholly  different,  because  from  their  thin 
population  and  better  political  circumstances,  poverty  among 
them  is  hardly  noticed,  and  our  duties  to  the  poor  are  conse- 
quently much  less  prominently  brought  forward.  And  un- 
luckily our  Evangelicals  read  St.  Paul  more  than  any  other 
part  of  the  Scriptures,  and  think  very  little  of  consulting  most 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  257 

fho<?e  parts  of  Scriptures  which  are  addressed  to  persons 
circumstanced  most  like  ourselves.  I  want  to  get  up  a  real 
Poor  Man's  Magazine,  which  should  not  bolster  up  abuses 
and  veil  iniquities,  nor  prose  to  the  poor  as  to  children  ;  but 
should  address  them  in  the  style  of  Cobbett,  plainly,  boldly, 
and  in  sincerity,  excusing  nothing  —  concealing  nothing  —  and 
misrepresenting  nothing  —  but  speaking  the  very  whole  truth 
in  love  —  Cobbett-like  in  style  —  but  Christian  in  spirit.  Now 
you  are  the  man  I  think  to  join  with  me  in  such  a  work,  and 

most  earnestly  do  I  wish  that  you  would  think  of  it 

I  should  be  for  putting  my  name  to  whatever  I  wrote  of  this 
nature,  for  I  think  it  is  of  great  importance  that  our  addresses 
should  be  those  of  substantive  and  tangible  persons,  not  of 
anonymous  shadows. 

XXII.      TO    REV.   H.   MASSINGBEKD. 

Rugby,  February,  1831. 

This  is  my  constant  defence  of  a  liberal  govern- 
ment The  high  wisdom  and  purity  of  their  principles  are 
overwhelming  to  their  human  infirmity,  and  amidst  such  a 
mass  of  external  obstacles :  but  what  do  we  gain  by  getting 
in  exchange  men  who  cannot  fall  short  of  their  principles  only 
because  their  principles  are  zero  ?  As  to  the  budget,  I  liked 
it  in  its  first  state,  although  the  Faex  Romuli,  i.  e.  the  fund- 
holders,  made  such  an  outcry  about  it.  What  between  the 
landed  aristocracy  and  the  moneyed  aristocracy,  the  interests 
of  the  productive  classes  are  generally  sure  to  go  to  the  wall ; 
and  this  goes  on  for  a  time,  till  at  last  the  squeeze  gets 
intolerable,  and  then  productive  classes  put  up  their  backs, 
and  push  in  their  turn  so  vigorously,  that  rank  and  property 
get  squeezed  in  their  turn  against  the  wall  opposite.  O 
utinam !  that  they  would  leave  each  other  their  fair  share  of 
the  road  ;  for  I  honor  aristocracy  in  its  proper  place,  and  in 
France  should  try  to  raise  it  with  all  my  might,  for  there  it 
is  now  too  low,  simply  because  it  was  once  too  high.  Dii 
omen  avertant,  and  may  the  Tories  who  are  hoping  to  defeat 
the  Ministers  on  the  Reform  question,  remember  how  bitterly 
the  French  aristocracy  had  cause  to  repent  their  triumph 
over  Turgot.  "  Flectere  si  nequeo  superos,  Acheronta,  move- 
bo,"  is  the  cry  of  Reform  when,  long  repulsed  and  scorned, 
she  is  on  the  point  of  changing  her  visage  to  that  of  Revolu- 
tion. What  you  say  about  the  progress  of  a  people  towards 
22*  Q 


258  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

liberty,  and  their  unfitness  for  it  at  an  earlier  stage,  I  fully 
agree  in.  If  ever  my  Thucydides  falls  in  your  way,  you 
will  find  in  the  Appendix,  No.  1,  a  full  dissertation  on  this 
matter. 

XXIII.      TO   THE   ARCHBISHOP    OP   DUBLIN. 

Rugby,  March  7, 1881. 

I  am  most  truly  obliged  to  you  for  all  your  advice  and 
collected  opinions  about  the  Register.  Now,  certainly,  I 
never  should  embark  in  such  a  scheme  for  my  own  amuse- 
ment I  have  enough  to  do  in  all  reason.  I  am  not  so 
craving  after  the  honor  of  appearing  in  print,  as  to  wish  to 
turn  newspaper  writer  on  that  account  I  should  most  wish 
that  the  thing  were  not  needed  at  all ;  next,  that  it  might  be 
done  by  somebody  else,  without  my  taking  part  in  it  But 
all  seem  to  agree  that  it  is  needed,  grievously  needed,  and 
will  anybody  else  undertake  it  ?  That  is  to  my  mind  the 
real  question.  For  if  not,  I  think  there  is  a  great  call  for 
much  to  be  risked,  and  much  to  be  braved,  and  the  thing 
done  imperfectly  is  better  than  not  done  at  all.  So  much  for 

the  principle The  aid  of  liberal  Tories  I  should  be 

most  thankful  for,  and  I  earnestly  crave  it ;  but  never  will  I 
join  with  the  High-Church  party It  would  be  ex- 
posing myself  to  the  fate  of  Amphiareus  with  a  vengeance, 
for  such  co-operation  would  sink  anything  into  the  earth,  or 

else  render  it  such  that  it  had  better  be  sunk Most 

earnestly  would  I  be  Conservative ;  but  defend  me  from  the 
Conservative  party  —  i.  e.  from  those  who  call  themselves  so 
par  excellence.  Above  all,  I  cannot  understand  why  a  failure 
should  be  injurious  to  future  efforts.  A  bad  history  of  any 
one  particular  period  may  doubtless  hinder  sensible  men  from 
writing  upon  the  same  period ;  but  I  cannot  see  how  a  foolish 
newspaper,  dying  in  1831,  should  affect  a  wise  one  in  1832  ; 
and  if  the  thing  is  impracticable  rei  natura,  then,  neither 
mine,  nor  any  other  with  the  same  views,  will  ever  answer. 
Certainly  our  failure  is  very  conceivable  —  very  probable  if 
you  will ;  but  something  must  be  risked,  and  I  think  the  ex- 
perimentum  will  be  made  "  in  corpore  vili ; "  for  all  the  damage 
will  be  the  expense  which  it  will  cost  me,  and  that  of  course 
I  shall  not  stand  beyond  a  certain  point  Ergo,  I  shall  try 
a  first  number In  the  opinions  I  have  already  re- 
ceived, I  have  been  enough  reminded  of  Gaffer  Grist,  Gaffer's 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  259 

eon,  and  a  little  jackass,  &c.,  but  I  have  learned  this  good 
from  it,  i.  e.  to  follow  my  own  judgment,  adopting  from  the 
opinions  of  others  just  what  I  approve  of,  and  no  more.  One 
thing  you  may  depend  on,  that  nothing  shall  ever  interfere 
with  my  attention  to  the  school.  Thucydides,  Register  and 
all,  should  soon  go  to  the  dogs  if  they  were  likely  to  do  that. 
I  have  got  a  gallows  at  last,  and  am  quite  happy ;  it  is  like 
getting  a  new  twenty-horse  power  in  my  capacities  for  work. 
I  could  laugh  like  Democritus  himself  at  the  notion  of  my 
being  thought  a  dangerous  person,  when  I  hang  happily  on 
my  gallows,  or  make  it  serve  as  a  target  to  spear  at. 

XXIV.       TO    CHEVALIER    BUNSEN. 

Rugby,  March  20, 1831. 

.  .  .  '.  .  I  was  reminded  of  you  when  I  heard  of  the  great 
loss  that  all  Europe  has  sustained  in  the  sudden  death  of 
Niebuhr.  I  know  your  personal  admiration  and  regard  for 
him,  and  that  you  would  feel  his  loss  privately  as  well  as 
publicly.  Besides  all  this,  the  exceedingly  anxious  state  of 
public  affairs  has  naturally  made  me  think  of  you,  whose 
views  on  those  matters  I  have  found  to  be  so  entirely  in 
agreement  with  my  own.  Our  accounts  of  Italy  are  very  im- 
perfect, but  there  have  been  reports  of  disturbances  in  Rome 
itself,  which  made  me  wish  that  you  and  your  family  were  in 
a  more  tranquil  country,  or  at  least  in  one,  where,  if  their 
were  any  commotions,  you  might  be  able  to  be  of  more  ser- 
vice than  you  could  be  amongst  foreigners  and  Italians. 

I  was  again  in  Italy  this  last  summer We  were 

at  Venice  during  the  Revolution  at  Paris,  and  the  first  intel- 
ligence I  heard  of  it  was  from  the  postmaster  at  the  little 
town  of  Bludenz  in  the  Vorarlberg.  The  circumstances  under 
which  I  first  heard  of  it,  will  never,  I  think,  depart  from  my 
memory.  We  had  been  enjoying  the  most  delightful  summer 
weather  throughout  our  tour,  and  particularly  in  all  the  early 
part  of  that  very  day ;  when  just  as  we  arrived  at  Bludenz, 
about  four  or  five  in  the  afternoon,  the  whole  sky  was  sud- 
denly overcast,  the  wind  arose  violently,  and  everything  an- 
nounced the  approach  of  a  complete  Alpine  storm.  We  were 
in  the  very  act  of  putting  up  the  head  of  the  carriage  and 
preparing  for  the  coming  rain,  when  the  postmaster,  in  answer 
to  an  observation  of  mine  about  the  weather  when  I  had 
passed  through  France  a  few  weeks  before,  seemed  to  relieve 


260  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

himself  by  telling  me  of  all  the  troubles  that  were  then  raging. 
His  expression  was,  "  Alles  ist  iibel  in  Frankreich,"  the  mere 
tumult  and  violence  of  political  quarrels  seeming  to  the  in- 
habitant of  a  Tyrolese  valley,  as  something  shocking,  because 
it  was  so  unpeaceful.  Hearing  only  indistinct  accounts  of 
what  was  going  on,  we  resolved  not  to  enter  France  immedi- 
ately, but  to  go  round  by  the  Rhine  through  Wirtemberg  and 
Baden ;  a  plan  which  I  shall  now  ever  think  of  with  pleasure, 
as  otherwise  I  never  should  have  seen  Niebuhr.  I  was  very 
glad,  too,  to  see  something  more  of  Germany,  only  it  was 
rather  vexatious  to  be  obliged  to  pass  on  so  quickly,  for  I 
could  not  wait  at  Heidelberg  long  enough  to  see  Creuzer,  and 
my  stay  even  at  Bonn  was  only  one  afternoon.  I  had  the 
happiness  of  sitting  three  hours  with  Niebuhr,  and  he  intro- 
duced me  to  his  poor  wife  and  children.  His  conversation 
completely  verified  the  impression  which  you  had  given  me  of 
his  character,  and  has  left  me  with  no  recollections  but  such 
as  are  satisfactory  to  think  of  now.  The  news*  of  the  Duke 
of  Orleans'  accession  to  the  French  throne  reached  Bonn 
while  I  was  with  Niebuhr,  and  I  was  struck  with  the  enthu- 
siastic joy  which  he  displayed  on  hearing  it.  I  fully  expected 
that  the  Revolution  in  France  would  lead  to  one  in  Belgium ; 
and  indeed,  we  passed  through  Brussels  scarcely  ten  days 
before  the  insurrection  broke  out.  You  are  so  well  acquainted 
with  English  politics,  that  you  will  take  a  deep  interest  in  the 
fate  of  the  Reform  Bill,  now  before  Parliament.  I  believe, 
that,  if  it  passes  now,  "  Felix  saeclorum  nascitur  ordo ; "  that 
the  aristocracy  still  retain  a  strong  hold  on  the  respect  and 
regard  of  England,  and  if  their  excessive  influence  is  curtailed, 
they  will  be  driven  to  try  to  gain  a  more  legitimate  influence, 
to  be  obtained  by  the  exercise  of  those  great  and  good 
qualities  which  so  many  of  them  possess.  At  present  this  may 
be  done  ;  but  five  years  hence  the  democratical  spirit  may  have 
gained  such  a  height,  that  the  utmost  virtue  on  the  part  of 
the  aristocracy  will  be  unable  to  save  it.  And  I  think  nearly 
the  same  with  regard  to  the  Church.  Reform  would  now,  I 
fully  believe,  prevent  destruction ;  but  every  year  of  delayed 
reform  strengthens  those  who  wish  not  to  amend,  but  to 
destroy.  Meanwhile,  the  moral  state  of  France  is  to  me  most 
awful ;  I  sympathized  fully  with  the  Revolution  in  July, 
but,  if  this  detestable  warlike  spirit  gets  head  amongst  the 


*  See  Extracts  from  Journals,  in  1830,  in  the  Appendix. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  261 

French  people,  I  hope,  and  earnestly  believe,  that  we  shall  see 
another  and  more  effectual  coalition  of  1815  to  put  it  down. 
Nothing  can  be  more  opposite  than  Liberalism  and  Bona- 
partism ;  and,  I  fear,  the  mass  of  the  French  people  are  more 
thirsting  to  renew  the  old  career  of  spoliation  and  conquest 
than  to  establish  or  promote  true  liberty ;  "  for  who  loves  that 
must  first  be  wise  and  good."  My  hope  is  that,  whatever 
domestic  abuses  may  exist,  Germany  will  never  forget  the 
glorious  struggle  of  1813,  and  will  know  that  the  tread  of  a 
Frenchman  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Rhine  is  the  worst  of 
all  pollutions  to  her  soil.  And  I  trust  and  think,  that  the 
general  feeling  in  England  is  strong  on  this  point,  and  that 
the  whole  power  of  the  nation  would  be  heartily  put  forth  to 
strangle  in  the  birth  the  first  symptoms  of  Napoleonism.  I 

was  at  a  party  at in  the  summer  at  Geneva,  where  I 

met  Thierry,  the  historian  of  "  Les  Gaulois,"  and  the  warlike 
spirit  which  I  perceived,  even  then,  in  the  French  liberals, 
made  a  deep  impression  upon  me. 

XXV.      TO    JOHN    WARD,    ESQ. 

(Co-editor  with  him  of  the  Englishman's  Register.) 

Rugby,  April  27,  1831. 

Your  own  articles  I  have  carefully  read  over ;  and,  in  style, 
they  more  than  answer  all  my  expectations.  Still,  as  we  are 
beginning  a  work  which  must  take  its  character  chiefly  from 
us  two,  I  will  fairly  say  that,  considering  for  whom  we  are 
principally  writing,  I  think  the  spirit  too  polemical.  When 
I  speak  of  the  aristocracy  of  England  bearing  hard  upon  the 
poor,  I  always  mean  the  whole  class  of  gentlemen,  and  not  the 
nobility  or  great  landed  and  commercial  proprietors.  I  can- 
not think  that  you  or  I  suffer  from  any  aristocracy  above  us, 
but  we  ourselves  belong  to  a  part  of  society  which  has  not 
done  its  duty  to  the  poor,  although  with  no  intention  to  the 
contrary,  but  much  the  reverse.  Again,  I  regard  the  Minis- 
terial Reform  Bill  as  a  safe  and  a  necessary  measure,  and  I 
should,  above  all  things,  dread  its  rejection ;  but  I  cannot  be 
so  sanguine  as  you  are  about  its  good  effects ;  because  I  think 
that  the  people  are  quite  as  likely  to  choose  men  who  will 
commit  blunders  and  injustice  as  the  boroughmongers  are, 
though  not  exactly  of  the  same  sort,  Above  all,  in  writing  to 
the  lower  people  my  object  is  much  more  to  improve  them 
morally  than  politically ;  and  I  would,  therefore,  carefully 


262  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

avoid  exciting  political  violence  in  them Now  so  far 

as  the  Register  is  concerned,  I  care  comparatively  little  about 
the  Reform  Bill,  but  I  should  wish  to  explain,  as  you  have 
done  most  excellently,  the  baseness  of  corruption  on  one  hand, 
and  as  I  think  you  might  do,  the  mischief  of  party  and  popu- 
lar excitement  on  the  other.  I  should  urge  the  duty  of  trying 
to  learn  the  merits  of  the  case,  and  that  an  ignorant  vote  is 
little  better  than  a  corrupt  one,  where  the  ignorance  could  in 
any  degree  be  helped.  But  in  such  an  address  I  would  not 
assume  that  the  Reform  Bill  would  do  all  sorts  of  good,  and 
that  every  honest  man  must  be  in  favor  of  it :  because  such 
assertions,  addressed  to  ignorant  men,  are  doing  the  very 
thing  I  deprecate,  i.  e.  trying  rather  to  get  their  vote,  than  to 
make  that  vote,  whether  it  be  given  for  us  or  against  us,  really 
independent  and  respectable.  Again,  with  the  debt.  It  is 
surely  a  matter  of  importance  to  show  that  the  greatest  part 
of  our  burthens  is  owing  to  this,  and  not  to  present  extrava- 
gance. It  affords  a  memorable  lesson  against  foolish  and  un- 
just wars,  and  the  selfish  carelessness  with  which  they  were 
waged.  This  you  have  put  very  well,  and  have  properly  put 
down  the  nonsense  of  the  "  Debt  being  no  harm."  Urge  all 
this  as  strongly  as  you  will,  to  prevent  any  repetition  of  the 
loan  system  for  the  tune  to  come.  But  the  fundholders  are 
not  to  blame  for  the  Debt ;  they  lent  their  money  :  and  if  the 
money  was  wasted,  that  was  no  fault  of  theirs.  Pay  the  debt 
off,  if  you  will  and  can,  or  make  a  fair  adjustment  of  the  ad- 
vantages and  disadvantages  of  different  sorts  of  property,  with 
a  view  of  putting  them  all  on  equal  terms ;  but  surely  the 
fundholder's  dividends  are  as  much  his  lawful  property  as  a 
landholder's  estate,  or  a  merchant's  or  manufacturer's  capital, 
liable  justly,  like  all  other  property,  to  the  claims  of  severe 
national  distress ;  but  only  together  with  other  property,  and 
by  no  means  as  if  it  were  more  just  in  the  nation  to  lay  hands 
on  the  fundholder's  dividends  than  on  the  profits  of  your  law 
or  of  my  school.  Nor  can  the  fundholders  be  fairly  said  to 
be  living  in  idleness  at  the  expense  of  the  nation  in  any  in- 
vidious sense,  any  more  than  your  clients  who  borrowed  my 
money  could  say  it  of  me,  if  they  had  borrowed  £10,000  of 
me  instead  of  £300,  and  then  chose  to  go  and  fool  it  away 
in  fireworks  and  illuminations.  If  they  had  spent  the  prin- 
cipal, no  doubt  they  would  find  it  a  nuisance  to  pay  the 
interest,  but  still,  am  I  to  be  the  loser,  or  can  I  fairly  be 
said,  if  I  get  my  interest  duly  paid,  to  be  living  at  their  ex- 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  263 

pense?  Besides,  as  a  mere  matter  of  policy,  we  should  be 
ejected  at  once  from  most  of  the  quarters  where  we  might 
otherwise  circulate,  if  we  are  thought  to  countenance  in  any 
degree  the  notion  of  a  "  sponge."  * 

The  "tea  monopoly,"  as  you  call  it,  involves  the  whole 
question  of  the  Indian  charter,  and  in  fact  of  the  Indian 
empire.  The  "  timber  monopoly  "  involves  far  more  questions 
than  I  can  answer,  about  Canada,  and  the  shipping  interest, 
and  whether  the  economical  principle  of  buying  where  you 
can  buy  cheapest,  is  always  to  be  acted  upon  by  a  nation 
merely  because  it  is  economically  expedient.  Even  about  the 
Corn  Laws,  there  are  difficulties  connected  with  the  question, 
that  are  not  to  be  despised,  and  1  would  rather  not  cut  the 

knot  so  abruptly I  wish  to  distinguish  the  Register 

from  all  other  papers  by  two  things :  that  politics  should  hold 
in  it  just  that  place  which  they  should  do  in  a  well-regulated 
mind ;  that  is,  as  one  field  of  duty,  but  by  no  means  the  most 
important  one ;  and  that  with  respect  to  this  field,  our  duty 
should  rather  be  to  soothe  than  to  excite,  rather  to  furnish 
facts,  and  to  point  out  the  difficulties  of  political  questions, 
than  to  press  forward  our  own  conclusions.  There  are  pub- 
lications enough  to  excite  the  people  to  political  reform ;  my 
object  is  moral  and  intellectual  reform,  which  will  be  sure 
enough  to  work  out  political  reform  in  the  best  way,  and  my 
writing  on  politics  would  have  for  its  end,  not  the  forwarding 
any  political  measure,  but  the  so  purifying,  enlightening,  so- 
bering, and,  in  one  word,  Christianizing  men's  notions  and 
feelings  on  political  matters,  that  from  the  improved  tree  may 
come  hereafter  a  better  fruit.  With  any  lower  views,  or  for 
the  sake  of  furthering  any  political  measures,  or  advocating 
a  political  patty,  I  should  think  it  wrong  to  engage  in  the 
Register  at  all,  and  certainly  would  not  risk  my  money  in  the 
attempt  to  set  it  afloat 

XXVI.       TO    HIS    SISTER    SUSANNAH    ARNOLD. 

Rugby,  April,  1831. 

I  should  like  you  to  see 's  letter  to  me  about 

the  Register ;  the  letter  of  a  really  good  man  and  a  thinking 
one,  and  a  really  liberal  one.  I  wrote  to  him  to  thank  him, 

*  The  proposal  alluded  to  was  the  taxation  of  the  funds  distinctly  from 
other  property,  as  in  the  plan  proposed  by  Lord  Althorp's  first  budget. 


264  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

and  got  the  kindest  of  answers  in  return,  in  which  he  con- 
cludes by  saying  that  he  cannot  help  taking  in  the  Register 
after  all  when  it  does  make  its  appearance.  Those  are  the 
men  whom  I  would  do  everything  in  my  power  to  conciliate, 
because  I  honor  and  esteem  them ;  but  for  the  common 
Church  and  King  Tories,  I  never  would  go  one  hair's  breadth 
to  please  them ;  for  their  notions,  principles  they  are  not, 
require  at  all  times  and  at  all  places  to  be  denounced  as 
founded  on  ignorance  and  selfishness,  and  as  having  been  in- 
variably opposed  to  truth  and  goodness  from  the  days  of  the 
Jewish  aristocracy  downwards.  It  is  therefore  nothing  but 
what  I  should  most  wish,  that  such  opinions  and  mine  should 

be  diametrically  opposite Not  that  I  anticipate  with 

much  confidence  any  great  benefits  to  result  from  the  Reform 
Bill ;  but  the  truth  is,  that  we  are  arrived  at  one  of  those 
periods  in  the  progress  of  society  when  the  constitution  natu- 
rally undergoes  a  change,  just  as  it  did  two  centuries  ago.  It 
was  impossible  then  for  the  king  to  keep  down  the  higher 
part  of  the  middle  classes ;  it  is  impossible  now  to  keep  down 
the  middle  and  lower  parts  of  them.  All  that  resistance  to 
these  natural  changes  can  effect  is  to  derange  their  operation, 
and  make  them  act  violently  and  mischievously,  instead  of 
healthfully  or  at  least  harmlessly.  The  old  state  of  things  is 
gone  past  recall,  and  all  the  efforts  of  all  the  Tories  cannot 
save  it,  but  they  may  by  their  folly,  as  they  did  in  France, 
get  us  a  wild  democracy,  or  a  military  despotism  in  the  room 
of  it,  instead  of  letting  it  change  quietly  into  what  is  merely 
a  new  modification  of  the  old  state.  One  would  think  that 
people  who  talk  against  change  were  literally  as  well  as  meta- 
phorically blind,  and  really  did  not  see  that  everything  in 
themselves  and  around  them  is  changing  every  hour  by  the 
necessary  laws  of  its  being. 

XXVII.      TO    W.    W.    HULL,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  May  2, 1831. 

Every  selfish   motive  would  deter  me  from   the 

Register ;  it  will  be  a  pecuniary  loss,  it  will  bring  me  no 
credit,  but  much  trouble  and  probably  some  abuse,  and  some 
of  my  dearest  friends  look  on  it  not  only  coldly,  but  with  aver- 
sion. But  I  do  think  it  a  most  solemn  duty  to  make  the  at- 
tempt. I  feel  our  weakness,  and  that  what  I  can  hope  to  do 
is  very  little,  and  perhaps  will  be  nothing ;  but  if  I  can  but 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  265 

excite  others  to  follow  the  same  plan,  I  shall  rejoice  to  be  su- 
perseded by  them,  if  they  will  do  the  thing  more  effectually. 
I  have  this  morning  been  over  to  Coventry  to  make  the  re- 
quired affidavit  of  Proprietorship,  and  to  sign  the  bond  for 
the  payment  of  the  advertisement  duty.  And  No.  1  will 
really  appear  on  Saturday  with  an  opening  article  of  mine, 
and  a  religious  one.  The  difficulty  of  the  undertaking  is  in- 
deed most  serious ;  all  the  Tories  turn  from  me  as  a  Liberal, 
whilst  the  strong  Reformers  think  me  timid  and  half  corrupt, 
because  I  will  not  go  along  with  them  or  turn  the  Register 
into  a  new  "  Examiner  "  or  "  Ballot."  So  that  I  dare  say  my 
fate  will  be  that  of  TO  peaa  r£>v  TTO\IT£>V  from  the  days  of  Thu- 
cydides  downwards. 

I  wrote  to  Parker  immediately  on  the  receipt  of  your  let- 
ter, proposing  to  him  either  to  give  up  [Thucydides]  altogether 
except  the  Appendices,  putting  all  my  materials  of  every  sort 
into  his  hands  freely  to  dispose  of,  or  else  to  share  with  him 
all  the  expenses  of  the  next  volume,  and  to  refund  at  once 
what  I  have  already  received  for  the  first.  I  have  told  him 
often  before,  and  now  have  told  him  again,  that  I  cannot  do 
it  quickly :  and  that  I  never  meant  or  would  consent  to  de- 
vote to  it  every  spare  moment  of  my  time,  so  as  to  leave  my- 
self no  liberty  for  any  other  writing.  I  have  written  nothing 
for  two  years  but  Thucydides  and  Sermons  for  the  boys ;  but 
though  I  will  readily  give  up  writing  merely  for  my  own 
amusement,  or  fame,  or  profit,  I  cannot  abandon  what  I  think 
is  a  positive  duty,  such  as  the  attempting  at  least  the  Register. 
Parker  wrote  immediately  a  very  kind  letter,  begging  me  to 
continue  the  editorship  as  at  present,  and  stating  in  express 
words  "  that  though  advantage  might  arise  from  the  early  com- 
pletion of  the  book,  no  injury  whatever  has  been  sustained  by 
him,  or  is  likely  to  be  sustained." 

I  am  proprietor  of  the  Register,  and  will  be  answerable  for 
it  up  to  a  certain  point ;  but  I  cannot  pretend  to  say  that  I 
shall  see  everything  that  is  inserted  in  it,  or  that  I  should  ex- 
punge everything  with  which  I  did  not  agree,  although  I  cer- 
tainly should,  if  the  disagreement  were  great,  or  the  opinions 
so  differing  seemed  to  me  likely  to  be  mischievous.  I  have 
no  wish  to  conceal  anything  about  it,  and  if  I  cannot  control 
it  to  my  mind,  or  find  the  thing  to  be  a  failure,  I  will  instantly 
withdraw  it.  Sed  Dii  meliora  piis. 

VOL.  i.  23 


266  LIFE  OF  DR.   ABNOLD. 


XX VIII.      TO    THE   ARCHBISHOP    OF   DUBLIN. 

Rugby,  June  11,  1831. 

I  confess  that  your  last  letter  a  good  deal  grieved  me,  not 
at  all  personally,  but  as  it  seemed  to  me  to  give  the  death- 
blow to  my  hopes  of  finding  co-operators  for  the  Register. 
That  very  article  upon  the  Tories  has  been  objected  to  as 
being  too  favorable  to  them,  so  what  is  a  man  to  do  ?  You 
will  see  by  No.  5,  that  I  do  not  think  the  Bill  perfect,  but 
still  I  like  it  as  far  as  it  goes,  and  especially  in  its  disfran- 
chisement  clauses.  But  my  great  object  in  the  Register  was 
to  enlighten  the  poor  generally  in  the  best  sense  of  the  term ; 
as  it  is,  no  one  joins  me,  and  of  course  my  nephew  and  I  can- 
not do  it  alone.  "  What  is  everybody's  business  is  nobody's," 
is  true  from  the  days  of  the  Peloponnesian  confederacy  down- 
wards. Unless  a  great  change  in  our  prospects  takes  place, 
the  Register  will  therefore  undergo  transmigration  when  the 
holidays  begin ;  whether  into  a  set  of  penny  papers,  or  into  a 
monthly  magazine  I  cannot  tell.  But  I  cannot  sit  still  with- 
out trying  to  do  something  for  a  state  of  things  which  often 
and  often,  far  oftener  I  believe  than  any  one  knows  of,  comes 
with  a  real  pang  of  sorrow  to  trouble  my  own  private  happi- 
ness. I  know  it  is  good  to  have  these  sobering  reminders, 
and  it  may  be  my  impatience,  that  I  do  not  take  them  merely 
as  awakeners  and  reminders  to  myself.  Still,  ought  we  not  to 
fight  against  evil,  and  is  not  moral  ignorance,  such  as  now  so 
sadly  prevails,  one  of  the  worst  kinds  of  evil  ? 

XXIX.      TO   W.   TOOKE,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  June  18,  1831. 

I  must  take  the  earliest  opportunity  of  thanking  you  most 
heartily  for  your  active  kindness  towards  me,  to  which  I  am 
indebted  for  the  most  gratifying  offer*  announced  to  me  in 
your  letter  of  yesterday.  I  feel  doubly  obliged  to  you  both 
for  your  good  opinion  of  me,  and  for  your  kind  recollection  of 
me I  trust  that  you  will  not  think  me  the  less  grate- 
ful to  you,  because  I  felt  that  I  ought  not  to  avail  myself  of 
the  Chancellor's  offer.  Engaged  as  I  am  here,  I  could  not 
reside  upon  a  living,  and  I  would  not  be  satisfied  to  hold  one 

*  Viz.  of  a  stall  in  Bristol  Cathedral,  with  a  living  attached  to  it,-, 
offered  to  him  by  Lord  Brougham. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  267 

without  residence.  I  have  always  strenuously  maintained  that 
the  clergy  engaged  in  education  skould  have  nothing  to  do 
with  church  benefices,  and  I  should  be  very  unwilling  to  let 
my  own  practice  contradict  what  I  really  believe  to  be  a  very 
wholesome  doctrine.  But  I  am  sure  that  I  value  the  offer 
quite  as  much,  and  feel  as  heartily  obliged  both  to  the  Chan- 
cellor and  to  you  for  it,  as  if  I  had  accepted  it. 

In  this  day's  number  of  the  Register  there  is  a 

letter  on  the  "  Cottage  Evenings,"  condemning  very  decidedly 
their  unchristian  tone.  It  is  not  written  by  me,  but  I  confess 
that  I  heartily  agree  with  it.  You  know  of  old  how  earnestly 
I  have  wished  to  join  your  Useful  Knowledge  Society ;  and 
how  heartily  on  many  points  I  sympathize  with  them.  This 
very  work,  the  "  Cottage  Evenings,"  might  be  made  everything 
that  I  wish,  if  it  were  but  decidedly  Christian.  I  delight  in 
its  plain  and  sensible  tone,  and  it  might  be  made  the  channel 
of  all  sorts  of  information,  useful  and  entertaining ;  but,  as  it 
is,  so  far  from  co-operating  with  it,  I  must  feel  utterly  averse 
to  it.  To  enter  into  the  deeper  matters  of  conduct  and  prin- 
ciple, to  talk  of  our  main  hopes  and  fears,  and  yet  not  to  speak 
of  Christ,  is  absolutely,  to  my  mind,  to  circulate  poison.  In 
such  points  as  this,  "  He  that  is  not  with  us  is  against  us." 

It  has  occurred  to  me  that  the  circumstance  of  some  of  the 
principal  members  of  the  Useful  Knowledge  Society  being 
now  in  the  government,  is  in  itself  a  strong  reason  why  the 
Society  should  take  a  more  decided  tone  on  matters  of  religion. 
Undoubtedly  their  support  of  that  Society,  as  it  now  stands, 
is  a  matter  of  deep  grief  and  disapprobation  to  a  large  pro- 
portion of  the  best  men  in  this  kingdom,  while  it  encourages 
the  hopes  of  some  of  the  very  worst.  And  it  would  be,  I  do 
verily  think,  one  of  the  greatest  possible  public  blessings,  if, 
as  they  are  honest,  fearless,  and  enlightened  against  political 
corruption,  and,  as  I  hope  they  will  prove,  against  ecclesiasti- 
cal abuses  also,  so  they  would  be  no  less  honest  and  fearless 
and  truly  wise  in  laboring  to  Christianize  the  people,  in  spite 
of  the  sneers  and  opposition  of  those  who  understand  full  well 
that,  if  men  do  *  not  worship  God,  they  at  once  by  that  very 
omission  worship  most  surely  the  power  of  evil. 

You  will  smile  at  my  earnestness  or  simplicity ;  but  it  does 

*  "  There  is  something  to  me  almost  awful,"  he  used  to  say,  speaking  of 
Lord  Byron's  Cain,  "  in  meeting  suddenly  in  the  works  of  such  a  man,  so 
great  and  solemn  a  truth  as  is  expressed  in  that  speech  of  Lucifer, '  He  who 
bows  not  to  God  hath  bowed  to  me.'  " 


268  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

strongly  excite  me  to  see  so  great  an  engine  as  your  Society, 
and  one  whose  efforts  I  would  so  gladly  co-operate  with,  and 
which  could  effect  so  easily  what  I  alone  am  vainly  struggling 
at,  to  see  this  engine  at  the  very  least  neutralizing  its  power 
of  doing  good,  and,  I  fear,  doing  in  some  respects  absolute 
evil.  On  the  other  side,  the  Tories  would  not  have  my  assist- 
ance in  religious  matters,  because  they  so  disapprove  of  my 
politics ;  and  in  the  mean  time  the  people,  in  this  hour  of  their 
utmost  need,  get  either  the  cold  deism  of  the  Cottage  Even- 
ings, or  the  folly  of  the  Cottager's  Monthly  Visitor.  Would 
the  Committee  accept  my  assistance  for  those  "  Cottage  Even- 
ings "  ?  I  would  give  a  larger  sum  than  I  should  be  thought 
sane  to  mention,  if  I  might  but  once  see  this  great  point 
effected.* 

XXX.      TO   MRS.   FLETCHER. 
(After  the  death  of  her  son.) 

Rugby,  August,  1831. 

I  know  that  you  are  rich  in  friends,  and  it  seems 

b'ke  presumption  in  me  to  say  it ;  but  I  entreat  you  earnestly 

to  remember  that  M and  myself  regard  you  and  yours 

with  such  cordial  respect  and  affection,  that  it  would  give  us 
real  pleasure,  if  either  now  or  hereafter  we  can  be  of  any  use 
whatever  in  any  arrangements  to  be  made  for  your  grand- 
children. I  feel  that  it  would  be  a  delight  to  me  to  be  of  any 
service  to  fatherless  children,  contemplating,  as  I  often  do, 
the  possibih'ty  of  myself  or  their  dear  mother  being  taken 
away  from  our  own  little  ones.  And  I  feel  it  the  more,  be- 
cause I  confess  that  I  think  evil  days  are  threatening,  insomuch 
that,  whenever  I  hear  of  the  death  of  any  one  that  is  dear  to 
me,  there  mixes  with  my  sense  of  my  own  loss  a  sort  of  joy 
tfiat  he  is  safe  from  the  evil  to  come.  Still  more  strong  is 
my  desire  that  all  Christ's  servants  who  are  left  should  draw 
nearer  every  day  to  him,  and  to  one  another,  in  every  feeling 
and  every  work  of  love. 

*  From,  a  later  letter  to  the  same.  —  "I  cannot  tell  yon  how  much  I  was 
delighted  by  the  conclusion  of  the  article  on  Mirabeau,  in  the  Penny  Maga- 
zine of  May  12.  That  article  is  exactly  a  specimen  of  what  I  wished  to 
see,  but  done  far  better  than  I  could  do  it.  I  never  wanted  articles  on 
religious  subjects  half  so  much  as  articles  on  common  subjects  written 
with  a  decidedly  Christian  tone.  History  and  Biography  are  far  better 
vehicles  of  good,  I  think,  than  any  direct  comments  on  Scripture,  or  Essays 
on  Evidences."  (The  article  in  question  was  by  Mr.  Charles  Knight) 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  269 

XXXI.       TO    REV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

Skipton,  July  11,  1831. 

The  Register  is  now  dead,  to  revive  however  in 

another  shape  ;  but  I  could  not  afford  at  once  to  pay  all,  and 
to  write  all,  and  my  nephew's  own  business  hindered  him  from 
attending  to  it  sufficiently,  and  it  thus  devolved  on  the  mere 
publisher,  who  put  in  things  of  which  I  utterly  disapproved. 
But  the  thing  has  excited  attention  in  some  quarters,  just  as 
I  wished ;  all  the  articles  on  the  laborers  were  copied  at 
length  into  one  of  the  Sheffield  papers,  and,  when  the  Regis- 
ter died,  the  Sheffield  proprietor  wrote  up  to  our  editor,  wish- 
ing to  engage  the  writer  of  those  articles  to  continue  them 
for  his  own  paper.  By  a  strange  coincidence  I  happened  to 
walk  into  the  office  of  this  very  paper,  at  Sheffield,  to  look  at 
the  division  on  the  Reform  Bill,  knowing  nothing  of  the  ap- 
plication made  to  our  editor  in  town.  I  saw  the  long  quota- 
tion from  the  Register,  and  as  the  proprietor  of  the  paper 
happened  to  be  in  the  shop,  I  talked  to  him  about  it,  and 
finally  told  him  who  I  was,  and  what  were  my  objects  in  the 
Register.  He  spoke  of  those  articles  on  the  laborers  being 
read  with  great  interest  by  the  mechanics  and  people  of  that 
class,  and  I  have  promised  to  send  him  a  letter  or  two  in 
continuation. 

XXXII.       TO    THE    ARCHBISHOP    OF    DUBLIN. 

August  12, 1831. 
Touching  the  Magazine,  I  think  it  Sfiirepov  TT\OVV 


in  comparison  with  a  weekly  paper;  but  ir\fov  rjfj.i<ru  TTUVTOS. 
I  will  join  in  it  gladly,  and,  if  required,  try  to  undertake  even 
the  editorship,  only  let  something  be  done.  I  found  all  the 
articles  about  the  laborers  in  my  Register  had  been  copied 
into  the  Sheffield  Courant,  and  the  proprietor  told  me  that 
they  had  excited  some  interest.  Thus  even  a  little  seed  may 
be  scattered  about,  and  produce  more  effect  than  we  might 
calculate  on ;  by  all  means  let  us  sow  while  we  can. 

What  do  Mayo  and  you  say  to  the  cholera  ?  Have  you 
read  the  accounts  of  the  great  fifty  years'  pestilence  of  the  6th 
century,  or  of  that  of  the  14th,  both  of  which  seem  gradually 
io  have  travelled  like  the  cholera  ?  How  much  we  have  to 
learn  about  the  state  of  the  atmosphere  and  the  causes  that 
effect  it !  It  seems  to  me  that  there  must  be  a  "  morbus  creli," 

23* 


270  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

which  at  particular  periods  favors  the  spread  of  disorders, 
and  thus,  although  the  cholera  is  contagious,  yet  it  also  origi- 
nates in  certain  constitutions  under  a  certain  state  of  atmos- 
phere, and  then  is  communicated  by  contagion  to  many  who 
would  not  have  originated  it  themselves ;  while  many  again 
are  so  antipathetic  to  it,  that  neither  contagion  nor  infection 
will  give  it  them.  Agathias  says  that  the  old  Persian  and 
Egyptian  philosophers  held  that  there  were  certain  periodical 
revolutions  of  time,  fraught  with  evil  to  the  human  race,  and 
others  during  which  they  were  exempt  from  the  worst  sort  of 
visitations.  This  is  mysticism ;  yet,  from  Thucydides  down- 
wards, men  have  remarked  that  these  visitations  do  not  come 
single ;  and,  although  the  connection  between  plague  and  fam- 
ine is  obvious,  yet  that  between  plague  and  volcanic  phenom- 
ena is  not  so  ;  and  yet  these  have  been  coincident  in  the  most 
famous  instances  of  long  travelling  pestilences  hitherto  on 
record.  Nor  is  there  much  natural  connection  between  the 
ravages  of  epidemic  disease,  and  the  moral  and  political  crisis 
in  men's  minds,  such  as  we  now  seem  to  be  witnessing. 

XXXIII.      TO    REV.    F.    C.   BLACKSTONK. 

(In  answer  to  a  question  about  Irvlngism  at  Port  Glasgow. ) 

Rugby,  October  25, 1831. 

If  the  thing  be  real,  I  should  take  it  merely  as 

a  sign  of  the  coming  of  the  day  of  the  Lord,  —  the  only  u^e, 
as  far  as  I  can  make  out,  that  ever  was  derived  from  the  gift 
of  tongues.     I  do  not  see  that  it  was  ever  made  a  vehicle  of 
instruction,  or  ever  superseded  the  study  of  tongues,  but  that 
it  was  merely  a  sign  of  the  power  of  God,  a  man  being  for  the 
time  transformed  into  a  mere  instrument  to  utter  sounds  which 
he  himself  understood  not.    .....    However,  whether  this 

be  a  real  sign  or  no,  I  believe  that  "  the  day  of  the  Lord  "  is 
coming,  i.  e.  the  termination  of  one  of  the  great  ai&vfs  of  the 
human  race  ;  whether  the  final  one  of  all  or  not,  that  I  be- 
lieve no  created  being  knows  or  can  know.  The  termination 
of  the  Jewish  mow  in  the  first  century,  and  of  the  Roman  aluv 
in  the  fifth  and  sixth,  were  each  marked  by  the  same  concur- 
rence of  calamities,  wars,  tumults,  pestilences,  earthquakes, 
&c.,  all  marking  the  time  of  one  of  God's  peculiar  seasons  of 
visitation.*  And  society  in  Europe  seems  going  on  fast  for  a 

*  For  the  same  belief  in  the  connection  of  physical  with  moral  convul. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  271 

similar  revolution,  out  of  which  Christ's  Church  will  emerge 
in  a  new  position,  purified,  I  trust,  and  strengthened  by  the 
destruction  of  various  earthly  and  evil  mixtures  that  have 
corrupted  it.  But  I  have  not  the  slightest  expectation  of 
what  is  commonly  meant  by  the  Millennium,  and  I  wonder 
more  and  more  that  any  one  can  so  understand  Scripture  as 
to  look  for  it.  As  for  the  signs  of  the  times  in  England,  I 
look  nowhere  with  confidence  :  politically  speaking,  I  respect 
and  admire  the  present  government.  The  ministry,  I  sin- 
cerely believe,  would  preserve  ah1  our  institutions  by  reforming 
them ;  but  still  I  cannot  pretend  to  say  that  they  would  do 
this  on  the  highest  principles,  or  that  they  keep  their  eye  on 
the  true  polar  star,  how  skilfully  soever  they  may  observe 
their  charts,  and  work  their  vessel.  But  even  in  this  I  think 

them  far  better  than  the  Tories We  talk,  as  much 

as  we  dare  talk  of  anything  two  months  distant,  of  going  to 
the  Lakes  in  the  winter,  that  I  may  get  on  in  peace  with 
Thucydides,  and  enjoy  the  mountains  besides. 

XXXIV.       TO    W.    W.    HULL,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  October  26,  1831. 

I  spear  daily,  as  the  Lydians  used  to  play  in  the 

famine,  that  I  may  at  least  steal  some  portion  of  the  day  from 
thought.  My  family,  the  school,  and,  thank  God,  the  town 
also,  are  all  full  of  restful  and  delightful  thoughts  and  images. 
All  there  is  but  the  scene  of  wholesome  and  happy  labor, 
and  as  much  to  refresh  the  inward  man,  with  as  little  to  dis- 
turb him  as  this  earth,  since  Paradise,  could,  I  believe,  ever 
present  to  any  one  individual.  But  my  sense  of  the  evils  of 
the  times,  and  to  what  prospects  I  am  bringing  up  my  children, 
is  overwhelmingly  bitter.  All  in  the  moral  and  physical  world 
appears  so  exactly  to  announce  the  coming  of  the  "  great  day 
of  the  Lord,"  i.  e.  a  period  of  fearful  visitation  to  terminate 
the  existing  state  of  things,  whether  to  terminate  the  whole 
existence  of  the  human  race,  neither  man  nor  angel  knows,  — 
that  no  entireness  of  private  happiness  can  possibly  close  my 
mind  against  the  sense  of  it.  Meantime  it  makes  me  very 
anxious  to  do  what  work  I  can,  more  especially  as  I  think  the 

sions,  see  Niebuhr,  Lebens-nachrichten,  ii.  p.  167.  It  may  be  as  well  to  add. 
that  the  view  above  expressed  of  the  apostolical  gift  of  tongues,  was  founded 
on  a  deliberate  study  of  the  passages  which  relate  to  it,  especially  1  Cor. 
xiv.  14,  13,  28,  2L 


272  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

prospect  of  the  cholera  makes  life  even  more  than  ordinarily 
uncertain ;  and  I  am  inclined  to  think,  from  my  own  peculiar 
constitution,  that  I  should  be  very  likely  to  be  attacked  by 

it. 

I  believe  I  told  you  that  I  am  preparing  for  the  press  a 
new  volume  of  Sermons,  and  I  wish  a  small  book  on  the  Evi- 
dences *  to  accompany  them ;  not  a  book  to  get  up  like  Paley, 
but  taking  the  real  way  in  which  the  difficulties  present  them- 
selves, half  moral,  half  intellectual,  to  the  mind  of  an  intel- 
ligent and  well-educated  young  man  ;  a  book  which,  by  God's 
blessing,  may  be  a  real  stay  in  that  state  of  mind  when  neither 
an  address  to  the  intellect  alone,  nor  one  to  the  moral  feel- 
ings, is  alone  most  likely  to  answer.  And  I  wish  to  make  the 
main  point  not  the  truth  of  Christianity  per  se,  as  a  theorem 
to  be  proved,  but  the  wisdom  of  our  abiding  by  it,  and  whether 
there  is  anything  else  for  it  but  the  life  of  beast  or  of  devil. 
I  should  like  to  do  this  if  I  could  before  I  die ;  for  I  think 
that  tunes  are  coming  when  the  Devil  will  fight  his  best  in 
good  earnest.  I  must  not  write  any  more,  for  work  rises  on 
every  side  open-mouthed  upon  me. 

XXXV.      TO    REV.   JULIUS   HARE. 

November  9, 1831. 

(After  thanking  him  for  the  first  number  of  the  Philologi- 
cal Museum,  and  wishing  him  success.)  For  myself,  I  am 
afraid  Thucydides  will  have  shown  you  that  I  am  a  very  poor 
philologist,  and  my  knowledge  is  too  superficial  on  almost 
every  point  to  enable  me  to  produce  anything  worth  your 
having ;  and  to  say  the  truth,  every  moment  of  spare  time  I 
wish  to  devote  to  writing  on  Religion  or  TroXtTucij.  I  use  the 
Greek  word,  because  "  politics  "  is  commonly  taken  in  a  much 
baser  sense.  I  know  I  can  do  but  little,  perhaps  nothing, 
but  the  "  Liberavi  animam  meam "  is  a  consolation ;  and  I 
would  fain  not  see  everything  good  and  beautiful  sink  in  ruin 
without  making  a  single  effort  to  lessen  the  mischief.  Since 
the  death  of  the  Register,  I  am  writing  constantly  in  one  of 
the  Sheffield  papers,  the  proprietor  of  which  I  earnestly  be- 
lieve sincerely  wishes  to  do  good. 

I  heartily  sympathize  with  the  feeling  of  your  concluding 

*  This  he  partially  accomplished  in  the  17th  Sermon  in  the  second  vol. 
nine,  and  the  llth  aud  19th  in  the  third.  Th*>  work  itself  was  begun,  buf 
never  finished. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  273 

paragraph  —  in  your  note,  I  mean  —  but  who  dare  look  for- 
ward now  to  anything  ? 

XXXVI.       TO    THE    AKCHBISHOP    OF    DUBLIN. 

Rugby,  November  8,  1831. 

You  must  not  go  to  Ireland  without  a  few  lines  from  me. 
I  cannot  yet  be  reconciled  to  your  being  on  the  other  side  of 
St.  George's  Channel,  or  to  thinking  of  Oxford  as  being  with- 
out you.  I  do  not  know  where  to  look  for  the  Mezentius 
who  should  "  succedat  pugnae,"  when  Turnus  is  gone  away. 
My  great  ignorance  about  Ireland  is  also  very  inconvenient  to 
me  in  thinking  about  your  future  operations,  as  I  do  not  know 
what  most  wants  mending  there,  or  what  is  likely  to  be  the 
disposition  to  mend  it  in  those  with  whom  you  will  be  sur- 
rounded. But  you  must  not  go  out  with  words  of  evil  omen ; 
and,  indeed,  I  do  anticipate  much  happiness  for  you,  seeing 
that  happiness  consists,  according  to  our  dear  old  friend, 

ev  fvepyia,  and  of  that  you  are  likely  to  have  enough 

I  am  a  coward  about  schools,  and  yet  I  have  not  the  satis- 
faction of  being  a  coward  Kara  irpoaipf<riv ;  for  I  am  inclined 
to  think  that  the  trials  of  a  school  are  useful  to  a  boy's  after 
character,  and  thus  I  dread  not  to  expose  my  boys  to  it ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  immediate  effect  of  it  is  so  ugly,  that, 
like  washing  one's  hands  with  earth,  one  shrinks  from  dirting 

them  so  grievously  in  the  first  stage  of  the  process 

I  cannot  get  over  my  sense  of  the  fearful  state  of  public 
affairs  :  —  is  it  clean  hopeless  that  the  Church  will  come  for- 
ward and  crave  to  be  allowed  to  reform  itself? I 

can  have  no  confidence  in  what  would  be  in  men  like , 

but  a  death-bed  repentance.  It  can  only  be  done  effectually 
by  those  who  have  not,  through  many  a  year  of  fair  weather, 
turned  a  deaf  ear  to  the  voice  of  reform,  and  will  now  be 
thought  only  to  obey  it,  because  they  cannot  help  it.  If  I 
were  indeed  a  radical,  and  hated  the  Church,  and  longed  for 
a  democracy,  I  should  be  jolly  enough,  and  think  that  all  was 
plain  sailing ;  but  as  it  is,  I  verily  think  that  neither  my 
spirits  nor  my  occupation,  nor  even  spearing  itself,  will  enable 
me  to  be  cheerful  under  such  an  awful  prospect  of  public 
evils. 


274  LIFE  OF   DR.   ABNOLD. 

XXXVII.      TO    W.    W.    HULL,    ESQ. 

Knutsford,  December  16,  1831. 

I  want  to  write   an   Essay  on  the  true  use  of 

Scripture ;  i.  e.  that  it  is  a  direct  guide  so  far  forth  as  we  are 
circumstanced  exactly  like  the  persons  to  whom  it  was  origi- 
nally addressed ;  that  where  the  differences  are  great,  there 
it  is  a  guide  by  analogy ;  i.  e.  if  so  and  so  was  the  duty  of  men 
so  circumstanced,  ergo,  so  and  so  is  the  duty  of  men  cir- 
cumstanced thus  otherwise ;  and  that  thus  we  shall  keep  the 
spirit  of  God's  revelation  even  whilst  utterly  disregarding  the 
letter,  when  the  circumstances  are  totally  different.  E.  g.  the 
second  commandment  is  in  the  letter  utterly  done  away  with 
by  the  fact  of  the  Incarnation.  To  refuse  them  the  benefit 
which  we  might  derive  from  the  frequent  use  of  the  crucifix, 
under  pretence  of  the  Second  Commandment,  is  a  folly, 
because  God  has  sanctioned  one  conceivable  similitude  of 
Himself  when  He  declared  Himself  in  the  person  of  Christ 
The  spirit  of  the  commandment  not  to  think  unworthily  of 
the  Divine  nature,  nor  to  lower  it,  after  our  own  devices,  is 
violated  by  all  unscriptural  notions  of  God's  attributes  and 
dealings  with  men,  such  as  we  see  and  hear  broached  daily, 
and,  though  in  a  less  important  degree,  by  those  representa- 
tions of  God  the  Father  which  one  sees  in  Catholic  pictures, 
and  by  what  Whately  calls  peristerolatry,  the  foolish  way  in 
which  people  allow  themselves  to  talk  about  God  the  Holy 
Ghost,  as  of  a  dove.  The  applications  of  this  principle  are 
very  numerous,  and  embrace,  I  think,  all  the  principal  errors 
both  of  the  High  Church  and  of  the  Evangelical  party. 

XXXVIH.  TO   KEV.  G.  CORNISH. 

RYDAL! ! !  December  23,  1881. 

We  are  actually  here,  and  going  up  Nabb's  Scar  presently, 
if  the  morning  holds  clear  :  the  said  Nabb's  Scar  being  the 
mountain  at  whose  foot  our  house  stands ;  but  you  must  not 
suppose  that  we  are  at  Rydal  Hall ;  it  is  only  a  house  by  the 
road-side,  just  at  the  corner  of  the  lane  that  leads  up  to 
Wordsworth's  house,  with  the  road  on  one  side  of  the  garden, 
and  the  Rotha  on  the  other,  which  goes  brawling  away  under 
our  windows  with  its  perpetual  music.  The  higher  mountains 
that  bound  our  view  are  all  snow-capped,  but  it  is  all  snug, 
and  warm  and  green  in  the  valley,  —  nowhere  on  earth  have 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  275 

I  ever  seen  a  spot  of  more  perfect  and  enjoyable  beauty,  with 
not  a  single  object  out  of  tune  with  it,  look  which  way  I  will. 
In  another  cottage,  about  twenty  yards  from  us,  Capt.  Hamil- 
ton, the  author  of  Cyril  Thornton,  has  taken  up  his  abode  for 
the  winter ;  close  above  us  are  the  Wordsworths  ;  and  we  are 
in  our  own  house  a  party  of  fifteen  souls,  so  that  we  are  in  no 
danger  of  being  dull.  And  I  think  it  would  be  hard  to  say 
which  of  us  all  enjoys  our  quarters  the  most.  We  arrived 
here  on  Monday,  and  hope  to  stay  here  about  a  month  from 
the  present  tune. 

It  is  indeed  a  long  time  since  I  have  written  to  you,  and 
these  are  times  to  furnish  ample  matter  to  write  or  to  talk 
about.  How  earnestly  do  I  wish  that  I  could  see  you ;  it  is 
the  only  ungratified  wish  as  to  earthly  happiness  of  my  most 
happy  life,  that  I  am  so  parted  from  so  many  of  my  dearest 

friends [After  speaking  of  objections  which  he  had 

heard  made  to  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Whately  to  the  Arch- 
bishopric of  Dublin.]  Now  I  am  sure  that  in  point  of  real 
essential  holiness,  so  far  as  man  can  judge  of  man,  there  does 
not  live  a  truer  Christian  than  Whately ;  and  it  does  grieve 
me  most  deeply  to  hear  people  speak  of  him  as  of  a  dangerous 
and  latitudinarian  character,  because  in  him  the  intellectual 
part  of  his  nature  keeps  pace  with  the  spiritual  —  instead  of 
being  left,  as  the  Evangelicals  leave  it,  a  fallow  field  for  all 
unsightly  weeds  to  flourish  in.  He  is  a  truly  great  man  —  in 
the  highest  sense  of  the  word,  —  and  if  the  safety  and  welfare 
of  the  Protestant  Church  in  Ireland  depend  in  any  degree  on 
human  instruments,  none  could  be  found,  I  verily  believe,  in 

the  whole  empire,  so  likely  to  maintain  it I  am  again 

publishing  Sermons,  with  an  essay  at  the  tail,  on  the  Interpre- 
tation of  Scripture,  embodying  things  that  I  have  been  think- 
ing over  for  the  last  six  or  seven  years  ;  and  which  I  hope  will 
be  useful  to  a  class  whose  spiritual  wants  I  am  apt  to  think 
are  sadly  provided  for  —  young  men  bringing  up  for  other 
professions  than  the  church,  who  share  deeply  in  the  intellect- 
ual activity  of  the  day,  and  require  better  satisfaction  to  the 
working  of  their  minds  than  I  think  is  commonly  given  them. 

XXXIX.     TO    THE    SAME. 

Rugby,  February  15,  1832. 

A  letter  from  Tucker  has  this  morning  informed  me  of  the 
heavy  trial  which  has  fallen  upon  you.  I  write  because  I 


276  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

should  wish  to  hear  from  you  under  similar  circumstances, 
and  because  it  is  unnatural  not  to  assure  you  at  such  a  mo- 
ment how  dearly  your  friends  at  Rugby  love  you  and  your 
dear  wife,  and  how  truly  they  sympathize  with  your  sorrow. 
Tucker's  letter  leaves  us  anxious  both  for  your  wife  and  for 
little  Robert  —  especially  for  the  latter ;  it  would  be  a  great 
comfort  to  hear  favorable  accounts  of  them,  if  you  could  give 
them.  I  will  not  add  one  word  more.  May  God  strengthen 
and  support  you,  my  dear  friend,  and  bless  all  his  dispensa- 
tions towards  us  both,  through  Jesus  Christ. 


XL.       TO    THE    LADY    FRANCIS    LGERTON. 
(On  the  subject  of  the  conversion  of  a  person  with  atheistical  opinions.) 

Rugby,  February  15,  1832. 

The  subject  of  the  letter  which  I  have  had  the  honor  of 
receiving  from  you  has  so  high  a  claim  upon  the  best  exer- 
tions of  every  Christian,  that  I  can  only  regret  my  inability 
to  do  it  justice.  But  in  cases  of  moral  or  intellectual  disorder, 
no  less  than  of  bodily,  it  is  difficult  to  prescribe  at  a  distance ; 
so  much  must  always  depend  on  the  particular  constitution  of 
the  individual,  and  the  peculiarly  weak  points  in  his  character. 
Nor  am  I  quite  sure  whether  the  case  you  mention  is  one  of 
absolute  Atheism,  or  of  Epicurism ;  that  is  to  say,  whether 
it  be  a  denial  of  God's  existence  altogether,  or  only  of  his  moral 
government,  the  latter  doctrine  being,  I  believe,  a  favorite 
resource  with  those  who  cannot  evade  the  force  of  the  evidences 
of  design  in  the  works  of  Creation,  and  yet  cannot  bear  to 
entertain  that  strong  and  constant  sense  of  personal  responsi- 
bility, which  follows  from  the  notion  of  God  as  a  moral 
governor.  At  any  rate,  the  great  thing  to  ascertain  is,  what 
led  to  his  present  state  of  opinions ;  for  the  actual  arguments 
by  which  he  would  now  justify  them,  are  of  much  less  con- 
sequence. The  proofs  of  an  intelligent  and  benevolent  Creator 
are  given  in  my  opinion  more  clearly  in  Paley's  Natural 
Theology,  than  in  any  other  book  that  I  know,  and  the 
necessity  of  faith  arising  from  the  absurdity  of  scepticism  on 
the  one  hand,  and  of  dogmatism  on  the  other,  is  shown  with 
great  power  and  eloquence  in  the  first  article  of  the  second 
part  of  Pascal's  "  Pensees,"  a  book  of  which  there  is  an  English 
translation  by  no  means  difficult  to  meet  with.  In  many  cases 
the  real  origin  of  a  man's  irreligion  is,  I  believe,  ]>oiitical.  He 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  277 

dislikes  the  actual  state  of  society,  hates  the  Church  as  con- 
nected with  it,  and,  in  his  notions,  supporting  its  abuses,  and 
then  hates  Christianity  because  it  is  taught  by  the  Church. 
Another  case  is,  when  a  man's  religious  practice  is  degenerated, 
when  he  has  been  less  watchful  of  himself  and  less  constant 
and  earnest  in  his  devotions.  The  consequence  is,  that  his 
impression  of  God's  real  existence,  which  is  kept  up  by 
practical  experience,  becomes  fainter  and  fainter ;  and  in 
this  state  of  things  it  is  merely  an  accident  that  he  remains 
nominally  a  Christian ;  if  he  happens  to  fall  in  with  an  anti- 
christian  book,  he  will  have  nothing  in  his  own  experience  to 
set  against  the  difficulties  there  presented  to  him,  and  so  he 
will  be  apt  to  yield  to  them.  For  it  must  be  always  under- 
stood that  there  are  difficulties  in  the  way  of  all  religion, — 
such,  for  instance,  as  the  existence  of  evil,  —  which  can  never 
be  fairly  solved  by  human  powers ;  all  that  can  be  done  intel- 
lectually is  to  point  out  the  equal  or  greater  difficulties  of 
atheism  or  scepticism ;  and  this  is  enough  to  justify  a  good 
man's  understanding  in  being  a  believer.  But  the  real  proof 
is  the  practical  one  ;  that  is,  let  a  man  live  on  the  hypothesis 
of  its  falsehood,  the  practical  result  will  be  bad ;  that  is,  a 
man's  besetting  and  constitutional  faults  will  not  be  checked ; 
and  some  of  his  noblest  feelings  will  be  unexercised,  so  that 
if  he  be  right  in  his  opinions,  truth  and  goodness  are  at  vari- 
ance with  one  another,  and  falsehood  is  more  favorable  to 
our  moral  perfection  than  truth  ;  which  seems  the  most 
monstrous  conclusion  which  the  human  mind  can  possibly 
arrive  at  It  follows  from  this,  that  if  I  were  talking  with  an 
Atheist,  I  should  lay  a  great  deal  of  stress  on  faith  as  a 
necessary  condition  of  our  nature,  and  as  a  gift  of  God  to  be 
earnestly  sought  for  in  the  way  which  God  has  appointed,  that 
is,  by  striving  to  do  His  will.  For  faith  does  no  violence  to 
our  understanding ;  but  the  intellectual  difficulties  being 
balanced,  and  it  being  necessary  to  act  on  the  one  side  or  the 
other,  faith  determines  a  man  to  embrace  that  side  which 
leads  to  moral  and  practical  perfection ;  and  unbelief  leads 
him  to  embrace  the  opposite,  or  what  I  may  call  the  Devil's 
religion,  which  is,  after  all,  quite  as  much  beset  with  intel- 
lectual difficulties  as  God's  religion  is,  and  morally  is  nothing 
but  one  mass  of  difficulties  and  monstrosities.  You  may  say 
that  the  individual  in  question  is  a  moral  man,  and  you  think 
not  unwilling  to  be  convinced  of  his  errors  ;  that  is,  he  sees 
the  moral  truth  of  Christianity,  but  cannot  be  persuaded  of  it 
VOL.  i.  24 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 


intellectually.  I  should  say  that  such  a  state  of  mind  is  one 
of  very  painful  trial,  and  should  be  treated  as  such  ;  that  it  is 
a  state  of  mental  disease,  which  like  many  others  is  aggra- 
vated by  talking  about  it,  and  that  he  is  in  great  danger  of 
losing  his  perception  of  moral  truth  as  well  as  of  intellectual, 
of  wishing  Christianity  to  be  false  as  well  as  of  being  unable 
to  be  convinced  that  it  is  true.  There  are  thousands  of 
Christians  who  see  the  difficulties  which  he  sees  quite  as 
clearly  as  he  does,  and  who  long  as  eagerly  as  he  can  do 
for  that  time  when  they  shall  know,  even  as  they  are  known. 
But  then  they  see  clearly  the  difficulties  of  unbelief,  and 
know  that  even  intellectually  they  are  far  greater.  And  in 
the  mean  while  they  are  contented  to  live  by  faith,  and  find 
that  in  so  doing,  their  course  is  practically  one  of  perfect  light ; 
the  moral  result  of  the  experiment  is  so  abundantly  satisfac- 
tory, that  they  are  sure  that  they  have  truth  on  their  side. 

I  have  written  a  sermon  rather  than  a  letter,  and  perhaps 
hardly  made  myself  intelligible  after  all.  But  the  main  point 
is,  that  we  cannot  and  do  not  pretend  to  remove  all  the  intel- 
lectual difficulties  of  religion ;  we  only  contend  that  even  in- 
tellectually unbelief  is  the  more  unreasonable  of  the  two,  and 
that  practically  unbelief  is  folly,  and  faith  is  wisdom. 

If  I  can  be  of  any  further  assistance  to  you  in  your  chari- 
table labor,  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  do  my  best 

XLI.      TO   THE    SAME. 

Rugby,  March  7,  1832. 

I  thank  you  for  your  last  letter,  and  beg  to  assure  you 
very  sincerely,  that  I  shall  have  great  pleasure  in  placing 
myself  under  your  directions  with  regard  to  this  unhappy 
man ;  and  as  he  would  probably  regard  me  with  suspicion, 
on  account  of  my  profession,  I  think  that  you  would  act  with 
the  best  judgment  hi  alluding  to  me  only  in  general  terms, 
as  you  propose  to  do,  without  mentioning  my  name.  But  I 
say  this  merely  with  a  view  to  the  man's  own  feelings  towards 
the  clergy,  and  not  from  the  slightest  wish  to  have  my  name 
kept  back  from  him,  if  you  think  that  it  would  be  better  for 
him  to  be  made  acquainted  with  it.  With  respect  to  your 
concluding  question,  I  confess  that  I  believe  conscientious 
atheism  not  to  exist  Weakness  of  faith  is  partly  constitu- 
tional, and  partly  the  result  of  education,  and  other  circum- 
stances; and  this  may  go  intellectually  almost  as  far  as 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  279 

scepticism ;  that  is  to  say,  a  man  may  be  perfectly  unable  to 
acquire  a  firm  and  undoubting  belief  of  the  great  truths  of 
religion,  whether  natural  or  revealed.  He  may  be  perplexed 
with  doubts  all  his  days;  nay,  his  fears  lest  the  Gospel  should 
not  be  true,  may  be  stronger  than  his  hopes  that  it  will. 
And  this  is  a  state  of  great  pain,  and  of  most  severe  trial, 
to  be  pitied  heartily,  but  not  to  be  condemned.  I  am  satisfied 
that  a  good  man  can  never  get  further  than  this ;  for  his 
goodness  will  save  him  from  unbelief,  though  not  from  the 
misery  of  scanty  faith.  I  call  it  unbelief,  when  a  man  delib- 
erately renounces  his  obedience  to  God,  and  his  sense  of 
responsibility  to  Him :  and  this  never  can  be  without  some- 
thing of  an  evil  heart  rebelling  against  a  yoke  which  it  does 
not  like  to  bear.  The  man  you  have  been  trying  to  convert, 
stands  in  this  predicament :  —  he  says  that  he  cannot  find  out 
God,  and  that  he  does  not  believe  in  Him;  therefore  he 
renounces  His  service,  and  chooses  to  make  a  god  of  himself. 
Now,  the  idea  of  God  being  no  other  than  a  combination  of 
all  the  highest  excellences  that  we  can  conceive,  —  it  is  so 
delightful  to  a  good  and  sound  mind,  that  it  is  misery  to  part 
with  it;  and  such  a  mind,  if  it  cannot  discern  God  clearly, 
concludes  that  the  fault  is  in  itself,  —  that  it  cannot  yet  reach 
to  God,  not  that  God  does  not  exist.  You  see  there  must  be 
an  assumption  in  either  case,  for  the  thing  does  not  admit  of 
demonstration,  and  the  assumption  that  God  is,  or  is  not, 
depends  on  the  degree  of  moral  pain,  which  a  man  feels  in 
relinquishing  the  idea  of  God.  And  here,  I  think,  is  the 
moral  fault  of  unbelief:  —  that  a  man  can  bear  to  make  so 
great  a  moral  sacrifice,  as  is  implied  in  renouncing  God.  He 
makes  the  greatest  moral  sacrifice  to  obtain  partial  satisfaction 
to  his  intellect :  a  believer  insures  the  greatest  moral  perfec- 
tion, with  partial  satisfaction  to  his  intellect  also ;  entire 
satisfaction  to  the  intellect  is,  and  can  be,  attained  by  neither. 
Thus,  then,  I  believe,  generally,  that  he  who  has  rejected 
God,  must  be  morally  faulty,  and  therefore  justly  liable  to 
punishment.  But  of  course  no  man  can  dare  to  apply  this 
to  any  particular  case,  because  our  moral  faults  themselves 
are  so  lessened  or  aggravated  by  circumstances  to  be  known 
only  by  Him  who  sees  the  heart,  that  the  judgment  of  those 
who  see  the  outward  conduct  only,  must  ever  be  given  in 
ignorance. 


280  LIFE   OP  DR.  ARNOLD. 

XL1I.       TO   J.   T.   COLERIDGE,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  April  6,  1832. 

I  could  still  rave  about  Rydal,  —  it  was  a  period 

of  five  weeks  of  almost  awful  happiness,  absolutely  without  a 
cloud ;  and  we  all  enjoyed  it  I  think  equally,  —  mother,  father, 
and  fry.  Our  intercourse  with  the  Wordsworths  was  one  of 
the  brightest  spots  of  all ;  nothing  could  exceed  their  friend- 
liness, —  and  my  almost  daily  walks  with  him  were  things  not 
to  be  forgotten.  Once  and  once  only,  we  had  a  good  fight 
nbout  the  Reform  Bill  during  a  walk  up  Greenhead  Ghyll  to 
see  "  the  unfinished  sheepfold  "  recorded  in  "  Michael."  But 
I  am  sure  that  our  political  disagreement  did  not  at  all  inter- 
fere with  our  enjoyment  of  each  other's  society ;  for  I  think 
that  in  the  great  principles  of  things  we  agreed  very  en- 
tirely, —  and  only  differed  as  to  the  TO  naff  «aora.  We  are 
thinking  of  buying  or  renting  a  place  at  Grasmere  or  Rydal, 
to  spend  our  holidays  at  constantly;  for  not  only  are  the 
Wordsworths  and  the  scenery  a  veiy  great  attraction,  but  as 
I  had  the  chapel  at  Rydal  all  the  time  of  our  last  visit,  I  got 
acquainted  with  the  poorer  people  besides,  and  you  cannot 
tell  what  a  home-like  feeling  all  of  us  entertain  towards  the 
valley  of  the  Rotha,  I  found  that  the  newspapers  so  dis- 
turbed me,  that  we  have  given  them  up,  and  only  take  one 
once  a  week  ;  it  only  vexes  me  to  read,  especially  when  I 
cannot  do  anything  in  the  way  of  writing.  But  I  cannot 
understand  how  you,  appreciating  so  fully  the  dangers  of  the 
times,  can  blame  me  for  doing  the  little  which  I  can  to  coun- 
teract the  evil.  No  one  feels  more  than  I  do  the  little  fruit 
which  I  am  likely  to  produce ;  still,  I  know  that  the  letters 
have  been  read  and  liked  by  some  of  the  class  of  men  whom 
I  most  wish  to  influence ;  and,  besides,  what  do  I  sacrifice,  or 
what  do  I  risk  ?  If  things  go  as  we  fear,  it  will  make  very 
little  difference  whether  I  wrote  in  the  Sheffield  Courant  or 
no ;  whereas,  if  God  yet  saves  us,  I  may  be  abused,  as  I  have 
been  long  since,  by  a  certain  party  ;  but  it  is  a  mistake  to 

suppose  that  either  I  or  the  school  suffer  by  that. I 

quite  think  that  a  great  deal  will  depend  on  the  next  three 
or  four  years,  as  to  the  permanent  success  of  Rugby  ;  we  are 
still  living  on  credit,  but  of  course  credit  will  not  last  forever, 
unless  there  is  something  to  warrant  it.  Our  general  style  of 
composition  is  still  bad,  and  where  the  fault  is,  I  cannot  say ; 
some  of  our  boys,  however,  do  beautifully  ;  and  one  copy  of 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  281 

Greek  verses  (Iambic?)  on  Clitumnus,  which  was  sent  in  to 
me  about  a  month  ago,  was  one  of  the  most  beautiful  school 
copies  I  ever  saw.  I  should  like  to  show  it  to  you,  or  even 
io  your  brother  Edward ;  for  I  do  not  think  any  of  his  pupils 
could  write  better,  —  TOVTO  8e,  t>s  eiKos,  anrdviov. 

XLIII.       TO    REV.    G.    COENISH. 

Rugby,  June  9,  1832. 

We  are  again,  I  believe,  going  to  the  Lakes  in 

the  holidays ;  to  a  great  house  near  the  head  of  Winander- 
mere,  Brathay  Hall ;  because  our  dear  old  house  at  Rydal  is 
let  for  a  twelvemonth.  We  all  look  with  delight  to  our 
migration,  though  the  half-year  has  gone  on  very  happily  as 
far  as  the  school  is  concerned,  and  I  am  myself  perfectly 
well ;  but  in  these  times  of  excitement  the  thirst  for  a  "  lodge 
in  some  vast  wilderness,"  is  almost  irresistible.  We  are 
going  to  have  a  dinner  here  for  all  the  town  on  passing  the 
Reform  Bill :  —  the  thing  was  to  be,  and  I  have  been  labor- 
ing to  alter  its  name,  and  to  divest  it  of  everything  political, 
in  order  that  everybody  might  join  in  it ;  but  of  all  difficult 
offices,  that  of  a  peacemaker  seems  to  me  to  be  one  of  the 
hardest.  What  a  delightful  man  we  have  in  Grenfell,  —  so 
lively  and  so  warm-hearted.  I  thought  of  you  and  of  Bagley 
Wood,  and  old  times,  when  I  walked  with  him  the  other  day 
in  the  rain  to  a  wood  about  four  miles  from  here,  dug  up 
orchis-roots,  and  then  bathed  on  our  way  home,  hanging  our 
clothes  on  a  stick  under  a  tree,  to  save  them  from  being  wet 

in  the   interval I  do  not  wonder  at  what  you  say 

about  the  civility  and  comph'ance  of  the  people  with  your 
instructions,  as  Rural  Dean.  I  think  it  is  so  still,  —  and  the 
game  is  yet  in  our  hands  if  we  would  play  it ;  but  I  suppose 
we  shall  not  play  it,  and  five  or  ten  years  hence  it  will  be  no 
longer  ours  to  play.  120,000  copies  of  the  Penny  Magazine 
circulate  weekly!  We  join  in  kindest  love  and  regards  to 
you  all.  Would  that  we  might  ever  meet,  before  perhaps  we 
meet  in  America  or  at  sea  after  the  Revolution. 

XLIV.       TO    REV.   J.    E.    TYLER. 

Rugby,  June  10,  1832. 

Your  letter  interested  me  exceedingly.     I  have  had  some 
correspondence    with   the    Useful    Knowledge   people   about 
24* 


282  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

their  Penny  Magazine,  and  have  sent  them  some  things 
which  I  am  waiting  to  see  whether  they  will  publish.  I 
want  to  give  their  Magazine  a  decidedly  Christian  character, 
and  then  I  think  it  would  suit  my  notions  better  than  any 
other ;  but  of  course  what  I  have  been  doing,  or  may  do  for 
them,  does  not  hinder  me  from  doing  what  I  can  for  you. 
I  only  suspect  I  should  wish  to  liberalize  your  Magazine,  as 
I  wish  to  Christianize  theirs  ;  and  probably  your  Committee 
would  recalcitrate  against  any  such  operation,  as  theirs  may 
do.  -  The  Christian  Knowledge  Society  has  a  bad  name  for 
the  dulness  of  its  publications ;  and  their  contributions  to 
the  cause  of  general  knowledge,  and  enlightening  the  people 
in  earnest,  may  seem  a  little  tardy  and  reluctant.  This, 
however,  touches  you,  as  an  individual  member  of  the  So- 
ciety, no  more  than  it  does  myself:  only  the  name  of  the 
Society  is  not  in  good  odor.  As  for  the  thing  itself,  it  is 
one  on  which  I  am  half  wild,  and  am  not  sure  that  I  shall 
not  start  one  at  my  own  expense  down  here,  and  call  it  the 
Warwickshire  Magazine  ;  and  I  believe  that  it  would  answer 
in  the  long  run,  if  there  were  funds  to  keep  it  up  for  a  time ; 
but  "  experto  crede,"  it  is  an  expensive  work  to  push  an 
infant  journal  up  hill.  The  objection  to  a  magazine  is  its 
desultoriness  and  vagueness  —  it  is  all  scraps ;  whereas  a 
newspaper  has  a  regular  subject,  and  follows  it  up  con- 
tinuously. I  would  try  to  do  this  as  much  as  I  could  in  a 
magazine.  I  would  have  in  every  number  one  portion  of  the 
paper  for  miscellanies,  but  I  think  that  in  another  portion 
there  should  be  some  subjects  followed  up  regularly  :  e.'g. 
the  history  of  our  present  state  of  society  traced  backwards  ; 
the  history  of  agriculture,  including  that  of  inclosures ;  the 
statistics  of  different  countries,  &c.,  &c.  I  suppose  the 
object  is  to  instruct  those  who  have  few  books  and  a  little 
education ;  but  all  instruction  must  be  systematic,  and  it  is 
this  which  the  people  want :  they  want  to  have  dpxai  before 
them,  and  comprehensive  outlines  of  what  follows  from  those 
apxal ;  not  a  parcel  of  detached  stories  about  natural  his- 
tory, or  this  place,  or  that  man,  —  all  entertaining  enough, 
but  not  instructive  to  minds  wholly  destitute  of  anything  like 
a  frame,  in  which  to  arrange  miscellaneous  information. 
And  I  believe,  if  done  spiritedly,  that  systematic  information 
would  be  even  more  attractive  than  the  present  hodge-podge 
of  odds  and  ends.  Above  all,  be  afraid  of  teaching  nothing; 
it  is  vain  now  to  say  that  questions  of  religion  and  politics 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  283 

are  above  the  understanding  of  the  poorer  classes  —  so  they 
may  be,  but  they  are  not  above  their  misunderstanding,  and 
they  will  think  and  talk  about  them,  so  that  they  had  best 
be  taught  to  think  and  talk  rightly.  It  is  worth  while  to 
look  at  Owen's  paper,  "The  Crisis,"  or  at  the  "Midland 
Representative,"  the  great  paper  of  the  Birmingham  opera- 
tives. The  most  abstract  points  are  discussed  in  them,  and 
the  very  foundations  of  all  things  are  daily  being  probed, 
as  much  as  by  the  sophists,  whom  it  was  the  labor  of 
Socrates'  life  to  combat.  Phrases  which  did  well  enough 
formerly,  now  only  excite  a  sneer ;  it  does  not  do  to  talk  to 
the  operatives  about  our  "  pure  and  apostolical  church,"  and 
"  our  glorious  constitution  ;  "  they  have  no  respect  for  either  ; 
but  one  must  take  higher  ground,  and  show  that  our  object  is 
not  to  preserve  particular  institutions,  so  much  as  to  uphold 
eternal  principles,  which  are  in  great  danger  of  falling  into 
disrepute,  because  of  the  vices  of  the  institutions  which 
profess  to  exemplify  them.  The  Church,  as  it  now  stands, 
no  human  power  can  save ;  my  fear  is,  that,  if  we  do  not 
mind,  we  shall  come  to  the  American  fashion,  and  have  no 
provision  made  for  the  teaching  Christianity  at  all.  But  it 
is  late,  and  I  must  go  to  bed ;  and  I  have  prosed  to  you 
enough  ;  but  I  am  as  bad  about  these  things  as  Don  Quixote 
with  his  knight-errantry,  and  when  once  I  begin,  I  do  not 
readily  stop. 

XLV.       TO    HIS    NEPHEW,   J.  WARD,  ESQ.,   ON  HIS    MARRIAGE. 

Brathay  Hall,  July  7,  1832. 

A  man's  life  in  London,  while  he  is  single,  may 

be  very  stirring,  and  very  intellectual,  but  I  imagine  that  it 
must  have  a  hardening  effect,  and  that  this  effect  will  be 
more  felt  every  year  as  the  counter  tendencies  of  youth 
become  less  powerful.  The  most  certain  softeners  of  a  man's 
moral  skin,  and  sweeteners  of  his  blood,  are,  I  am  sure, 
domestic  intercourse  in  a  happy  marriage,  and  intercourse 
with  the  poor.  It  is  very  hard,  I  imagine,  in  our  present 
state  of  society,  to  keep  up  intercourse  with  God  without  one 
or  both  of  these  aids  to  foster  it.  Romantic  and  fantastic 
indolence  was  the  fault  of  other  times  and  other  countries ; 
here  I  crave  more  and  more  every  day  to  find  men  unfevered 
by  the  constant  excitement  of  the  world,  whether  literary, 
political,  commercial,  or  fashionable ;  men  who,  while  they 


284  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

are  alive  to  all  that  is  around  them,  feel  also  who  is  above 
them.  I  would  give  more  than  I  can  say,  if  your  Useful 
Knowledge  Society  Committee  had  this  last  feeling,  as 
strongly  as  they  have  the  other  purely  and  beneficently. 

I   care   not  for  one  party  or  the   other,  but  I   do 

care  for  the  country,  and  for  interests  even  more  precious 
than  that  of  the  country,  which  the  present  disordered  state  of 
the  human  mind  seems  threatening.  But  this  mixes  strangely 
with  your  present  prospects,  and  I  hope  we  may  both  manage 
to  live  in  peace  with  our  families  in  the  land  of  our  fathers, 
without  crossing  the  Atlantic. 

XLVI.      TO    THE   ARCHBISHOP    OF   DUBLIN. 

Brathay  Hall,  July  8, 1882. 

This   place   is   complete   rest,  such    as  I  wish  you  could 

enjoy  after  your  far  more  anxious  occupations As 

*o  the  state  of  the  country,  I  find  my  great  concern  about  it 
«omes  by  accesses,  sometimes  weighing  upon  me  heavily,  and 

then  again  laid  aside  as  if  it  were  nothing I  wish 

that  your  old  notion  of  editing  a  •  family  Bible  could  be  re- 
vived. I  do  not  know  anything  which  more  needs  to  be 
done,  and  it  would  be  a  very  delightful  thing  if  it  could  be 
accompanied  with  really  good  maps  and  engravings,  which 
might  be  done  if  a  large  sale  could  be  reckoned  upon.  Il 
might  be  published  in  penny  numbers,  not  beginning  with 
Genesis,  but  with  some  of  the  most  important  parts  of  the 
New  Testament,  e.  g.  St.  John's  Gospel  or  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans.  Some  of  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, I  should  be  inclined  to  publish  last  of  all,  as  being  the 
least  important,  whilst  the  Psalms  and  some  of  the  Prophets 
should  appear  very  early.  I  am  even  grand  enough  to  aspire 
after  a  new,  or  rather  a  corrected  translation,  for  I  would 
only  alter  manifest  faults  or  obscurities,  and  even  then  pre- 
serving as  closely  as  possible  the  style  of  the  old  translation. 
Many  could  do  this  for  the  New  Testament,  but  where  is  the 
man,  in  England  at  least,  who  could  do  it  for  the  Old  ? 

But  alas !  for  your  being  at  Dublin  instead  of  at 

Canterbury. 


LIFE    OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  285 


XL VII.       TO    REV.    J.    E.    TYLER. 

Manchester,  July  28,  1832. 

I  am  on  my  way  to  Laleham  from  the  Lakes,  to  see  my 
poor  sister,  whose  long  illness  seems  now  at  last  on  the  point 
of  being  happily  ended.  And  whilst  waiting  here  for  a  coach, 
I  have  just  bought  four  of  the  numbers  of  the  Saturday  Maga- 
zine, and  think  this  a  good  opportunity  to  answer  your  last 
kind  letter.  The  difficulty  which  occurs  to  me  in  your  Ser- 
mon project,  is,  how  to  make  the  work  sufficiently  systematic, 
or  sufficiently  particular.  I  mean  this,  a  real  sermon  has  very 
often  no  sort  of  connection  with  its  last  week's  predecessor,  or 
next  week's  successor ;  but  then  it  is  appropriate  either  to 
something  in  the  service  of  the  day,  or  else  to  something  in 
the  circumstances  of  the  hearers,  which  makes  it  fitting  for 
that  especial  season.  And  if  it  be  nothing  of  any  of  these, 
but  a  mere  sermon  which  might  as  well  be  preached  on  any 
other  day,  and  in  any  other  place  as  when  and  where  it  is 
actually  preached,  then  I  hold  it  to  be,  with  rare  exceptions, 
a  very  dull  thing,  and  a  very  useless  one.  Now  in  a  monthly 
publication  of  Sermons,  you  lose  all  the  advantages  of  local 
and  personal  applicability :  you  have  only  the  applicability 
of  time,  or  of  matter ;  that  is,  your  month's  sermons  may  be 
written  on  the  lessons  for  the  month,  or  the  part  of  Scripture 
then  read,  or  on  the  season  of  the  year,  whether  natural  or 
ecclesiastical ;  or  else  they  may  form  successive  parts  of  one 
great  whole,  to  be  completed  in  any  given  time,  and  to  be 
announced  in  the  first  of  the  series.  But  if  you  publish  a 
mere  collection  of  miscellaneous  sermons,  I  think  that  you 
will  be  wasting  your  labor. 

Now  then  practically  to  the  point.  Fix  on  your  plan, 
whether  your  arrangement  be  of  time  or  of  matter,  or  of  both ; 
and  let  me  know  what  part  you  would  like  me  to  take :  e.  g. 
whether  sermons  on  any  given  book  of  Scripture,  or  on  the 
Lessons  for  the  Sundays  in  Advent,  or  in  Lent,  or  at  any  other 
given  period ; — or  sermons  for  Spring  or  Winter,  &c.,  adapted 
either  to  an  agricultural  or  manufacturing  population ;  or,  if 
you  like  the  arrangement  of  matter,  give  me  any  subject  that 
you  choose,  whether  of  evidence,  history,  or  exhortation  upon 
doctrine,  and  I  will  do  my  best  for  you :  but  I  cannot  write 
sermons  in  the  abstract.  I  like  to  have  my  own  portion  of 
any  work  to  be  kept  to  myself,  and  you  would  not  thank  me 


286  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

for  copying  out  for  you  some  of  my  old  sermons  out  of  my 
paper  case. 

I  am  sorry  for  what  you  say  about  my  not  writing  anything 
startling ;  because  it  shows  how  long  we  have  been  absent 
from  one  another,  and  that  you  are  beginning  to  judge  me 
in  part  upon  the  reports  of  others.  There  are  some  people 
whom  I  must  startle,  if  I  am  to  do  any  good :  and  so  you 
think  too,  I  am  sure.  But  to  startle  the  majority  of  good 
and  sensible  men,  or  to  startle  so  as  to  disgust  at  once  a 
majority  of  any  sort,  are  things  which  I  most  earnestly 
should  wish  to  avoid.  At  the  same  time,  I  do  strongly  object, 
on  principle,  to  the  use  of  that  glozing,  unnatural,  and  silly 
language,  (for  so  it  is  hi  us  now,)  which  men  use  one  after 
another,  till  it  becomes  as  worn  as  one  of  the  old  shil- 
lings  

I  wish  your  Saturday  Magazine  all  success ;  I  do  not 
quite  like  the  introductory  article,  —  but  I  think  it  improves 
as  it  goes  along.  The  print  of  the  departure  of  the  Israelites 
was  a  good  notion,  and  well  executed ;  and  I  like  some  of 
your  poetry.  I  could  only  do  you  good  by  sending  you  some- 
thing very  radical ;  for  you  will  have  enough  of  what  is  right 
and  proper.  But  seriously,  if  I  can  persuade  the  Penny 
Magazine  to  receive  things  more  in  your  tone,  I  think  I  shall 
do  more  good  than  by  writing  for  you  —  if,  as  I  fear,  I  cannot 
do  both.  In  fact,  I  have  for  some  time  past  done  neither,  and 
I  know  not  how  or  when  I  can  mend. 

XI/VTII.      TO    THE   ARCHBISHOP    OF   DUBLIN. 

Rugby,  September  6,  1832. 

Have  you  heard  that  the  Useful  Knowledge  So- 
ciety have  resolved  to  publish  a  Bible,  and  asked to  be 

editor  ?  Hac  tamen  lege,  that,  where  doctrine  is  introduced, 
the  opinions  of  the  different  sects  of  Christians  should  be  fairly 
stated.  Now  Evans's  Dictionary  of  all  Religions  is  a  useful 
book,  but  I  do  not  want  exactly  to  see  it  made  a  rider  upon 
the  Scriptures.  We  want  something  better  than  this  plan. 

I  told  —    —  that  I  must  write  to  you  before  I  gave 

him  any  promise  of  assistance.  0  !  for  your  Bible  plan,  or, 
at  least,  for  the  sanction  of  your  name :  I  think  I  see  the 
possibility  of  a  true  comprehensive  Christian  Commentary, 
keeping  back  none  of  the  counsel  of  *God,  lowering  no  truth, 
chilling  no  lofty  or  spiritual  sentiment,  yet  neither  silly, 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD  287 

fanatical,  nor  sectarian.  Your  book  on  Romanism  shows 
how  this  may  be  done,  and  it  applies  to  all  sects  alike.  They 
are  not  all  error,  nor  we  all  truth  ;  e.  g.  the  Quakers  reject 
the  communion  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  thereby  losing  a  great 
means  of  grace  ;  but  are  they  not  tempted  to  do  so  by  the 
superstitions  which  other  Christians  have  heaped  upon  the 
institution,  and  is  there  not  some  taint  of  these  in  the  exhor- 
tation even  in  our  own  Communion  Service?  And  with 
regard  to  the  greatest  truths  of  all,  you  know  how  Pelagianism 
and  Calvinism  have  encouraged  each  other,  and  how  the 
Athanasian  Creed,  at  this  day,  confirms  and  aggravates  the 
evils  of  Unitarianism.  I  heard  some  time  since,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  that,  in  the  United  States,  where  the  Episcopal  Church 
has  expelled  this  creed,  the  character  of  Unitarianism  is  very 
different  from  what  it  is  in  England,  and  is  returning  toward 
high  Arianism,  just  as  here  it  has  gone  a  downward  course 
to  the  very  verge  of  utter  unbelief.  I  know  how  much  you 
have  on  your  hands  and  on  your  mind  ;  I,  too,  have  my 
hobbies,  but  I  know  of  nothing  more  urgent  than  to  circulate 
such  an  edition  of  the  Scriptures,  as  might  labor,  with  God's 
help,  to  give  their  very  express  image  without  human  addi- 
tion or  omission,  striving  to  state  clearly  what  is  God's  will 
with  regard  to  us  now  ;  for  this  seems  to  me  to  be  one  great 
use  of  a  commentary,  to  make  people  understand  where  God 
spoke  to  their  fathers,  and  where  He  speaks  to  them;  or 
rather  —  since  in  all  He  speaks  to  them,  though  not  after  the 
same  manner  —  to  teach  them  to  distinguish  where  they  are 
to  follow  the  letter,  and  where  the  spirit. 

I  have  promised  to  send  Tyler  some  sermons  for  his  Maga- 
zine, though  the  abstract  idea  of  a  sermon  is  rather  a  puzzle 
to  my  faculties,  accustomed  as  they  are  to  cling  to  things  in 
the  concrete.  But  I  am  vexed  to  find  how  much  of  hopeless 
bigotry  lingers  in  minds,  of?  fjKia-Ta  exP^l-  -"-  am  sure 


is  personally  cooled  towards  me,  by  the  Essay  attached  to  the 
Sermons,  and  the  Sheffield  Courant  Letters.  And  another 
very  old  and  dear  friend  wrote  to  me  about  my  grievous  errors 
and  yours,  praying  *'  that  I  may  be  delivered  from  such  false 
doctrines,  and  restrained  from  promulgating  them."  These 
men  have  the  advantage  over  us,  Xe'-yw  KUT  avdpamov,  which 
the  Catholics  had  over  the  Protestants  :  they  taxed  them  with 
damnable  heresy,  and  pronounced  their  salvation  impossible  ; 
the  Protestants  in  return  only  charged  them  with  error  and 
superstition,  till  some  of  the  hotter  sort,  impatient  of  such  an 


288  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

unequal  rejoinder,  bethought  themselves  of  retorting  with  the 
charge  of  damnable  idolatry.  But  still  I  think  that  we  have 
the  best  of  it,  in  not  letting  what  we  firmly  believe  to  be 
error  and  ignorance  shake  our  sense  of  that  mightier  bond  of 
union,  which  exists  between  all  those  who  love  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  in  sincerity ;  perhaps  I  should  say,  in  not  letting 
our  sense  of  the  magnitude  of  the  error  lead  us  to  question 
the  sincerity  of  the  love. 

I  must  conclude  with  a  more  delightful  subject  —  my  most 
dear  and  blessed  sister.*  I  never  saw  a  more  perfect  instance 
of  the  spirit  of  power  and  of  love,  and  of  a  sound  mind ;  intense 
love,  almost  to  the  annihilation  of  selfishness  —  a  daily  martyr- 
dom for  twenty  years,  during  which  she  adhered  to  her  early- 
formed  resolution  of  never  talking  about  herself;  thoughtful 
about  the  very  pins  and  ribands  of  my  wife's  dress,  about  the 
making  of  a  doll's  cap  for  a  child,  —  but  of  herself,  save  only 
as  regarded  her  ripening  in  all  goodness,  wholly  thoughtless, 
enjoying  everything  lovely,  graceful,  beautiful,  high-minded, 
whether  in  God's  works  or  man's,  with  the  keenest  relish ; 
inheriting  the  earth  to  the  very  fuhless  of  the  promise,  though 
never  leaving  her  crib,  nor  changing  her  posture ;  and  pre- 
served through  the  very  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death,  from 
all  fear  or  impatience,  or  from  every  cloud  of  impaired  reason, 
which  might  mar  the  beauty  of  Christ's  Spirit's  glorious  work. 
May  God  grant  that  I  might  come  but  within  one  hundred 
degrees  of  her  place  in  glory.  God  bless  you  all. 

XLIX.       TO    J.    T.    COLERIDGE,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  September  17,  1832. 

Much  has  happened  since  April,  but  nothing  to 

me  of  so  much  interest  as  the  death  of  my  dear  sister  Susan- 
nah, after  twenty-one  years  of  suffering.  We  were  called  up 
hastily  to  Laleham  in  June,  hardly  expecting  then  to  find 
her  alive ;  but  she  rallied  again  and  we  went  down  with 
all  our  family  to  the  Lakes  for  the  holidays,  intending  to  re- 
turn to  Laleham  for  a  short  time  before  the  end  of  the  vaca- 
tion. But  the  accounts  became  worse,  and  we  went  up  to 
her,  leaving  the  children  at  the  Lakes,  towards  the  end  of 
July.  We  spent  more  than  a  fortnight  at  Laleham,  and 

*  Susannah  Arnold  died  at  Lnleham,  August  20,  1832,  after  a  complaint 
in  the  spine  of  twenty  years'  duration. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  289 

returned  to  Rugby  on  the  18th  of  August,  expecting,  or  at 
least  not  despairing  of  seeing  her  again  in  the  winter.  On 
the  23d,  we  heard  from  Mrs.  Buckland,  to  say  that  all  was 
over;  she  had  died  on  the  night  of  the  21st,  so  suddenly 
that  the  Bucklands  could  not  be  called  from  the  next  house 
in  time.  The  last  months,  I  may  say  indeed  the  last  twenty 
years  of  her  life,  had  been  a  constant  preparation,  and  she 
was  only  spared  the  nervous  fear  which  none  probably  can 
wholly  overcome,  of  expecting  the  approach  of  death  within 
a  definite  time.  I  never  saw  nor  ever  heard  of  a  more  com- 
plete triumph  over  selfishness,  a  more  glorious  daily  renewing 
of  soul  and  spirit  amidst  the  decays  and  sufferings  of  the 
body,  than  was  displayed  throughout  her  twenty  years'  martyr- 
dom. My  poor  aunt,  well  comparatively  speaking  in  body, 
but  decayed  sadly  in  her  mind,  still  lives  in  the  same  house, 
close  to  the  Bucklands  ;  the  only  remaining  survivor  of  what 
I  call  the  family  of  my  childhood.  •  I  attach  a  very  peculiar 
value  to  the  common  articles  of  furniture,  the  mere  pictures, 
and  china,  and  books,  and  candlesticks,  &c.,  which  I  have 
seen  grouped  together  in  my  infancy,  and  whilst  my  aunt  still 
keeps  them,  it  seems  to  me  as  if  my  father's  house  were  not 
quite  broken  up. 

You  may  have  heard,  perhaps,  that  great  as  is  the  loss  of 
this  dear  sister,  I  was  threatened  with  one  still  heavier  in 
May  last.  My  wife  was  seized  with  a  most  virulent  sore 
throat,  which  brought  on  a  premature  confinement,  and  for 
some  time  my  distress  was  greater  than  it  has  been  since  her 
dangerous  illness  in  1821.  But  she  was  mercifully  recovered, 
not  however  without  the  loss  of  our  little  baby,  a  beautiful 
little  girl,  who  just  lived  for  seven  days,  and  then  drooped 
away  and  died  of  no  other  disorder  than  her  premature  birth. 
We  had  nothing  but  illness  in  our  house  during  the  whole 
spring ;  wife,  children,  servants,  all  were  laid  up  one  after  the 
other,  and  for  some  time  I  never  got  up  in  the  morning  with- 
out hearing  of  some  new  case,  either  amongst  my  own  family 
or  amongst  the  boys.  Then  came  the  cholera  at  Newbold  : 
and  I  thought  that,  beat  as  we  were  by  such  a  succession  of 
illnesses,  we  were  in  no  condition  to  encounter  this  new 
trouble ;  and  therefore,  with  the  advice  of  our  medical  men, 
I  hastily  dispersed  the  school.  We  went  down  bodily  to  the 
Lakes,  and  took  possession  of  Brathay  Hall,  a  large  house 
*nd  large  domain,  just  on  the  head  of  Winandermere.  It 
was  like  Tinian  to  Anson's  crew ;  never  was  there  such  a 
VOL.  i.  25  s 


290  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

renewal  of  strength  and  spirits  as  our  children  experienced 
from  their  six  weeks'  sojourn  in  this  Paradise.  And  for  their 
mamma  and  papa,  the  month  that  we  spent  there  was  not  less 
delightful.  Our  intimacy  with  the  Wordsworths  was  cemented, 
and  scenery  and  society  together  made  the  time  a  period  of 
enjoyment,  which  it  seemed  almost  wholesome  for  us  not  to 
have  longer  continued,  pf)  VOOTOIO  XadupfOa. 

And  now  we  are  all  at  work  again,  the  school  very  full, 
very  healthy,  and  I  think  in  a  most  beautiful  temper ;  the 
Sixth  Form  working  /uiXiora  nor  (VXTJV,  and  all  things  at 
present  promising.  I  am  quite  well,  and  enjoying  my  work 
exceedingly.  May  I  only  remember  that,  after  all,  the  true 
work  is  to  have  a  daily  living  faith  in  Him  whom  God  sent. 
Send  me  a  letter  to  tell  me  fully  about  you  and  yours  ;  it  is 
sad  that  we  can  never  meet,  but  we  must  write  oftener. 
Business  ought  not  so  to  master  us  as  not  to  leave  time  for  a 
better  business,  and  one  which  I  trust  will  last  longer,  for  I 
iove  to  think  that  Christian  friendships  may  be  part  of  the 
business  of  eternity.  God  ever  bless  you. 


CHAPTER    VII. 

LIFE    AND     CORRESPONDENCE.       JANUARY,     1833,     TO     SEP- 
TEMBER, 1835. 

His  alarm  about  the  state  of  the  poor  naturally  sub- 
sided with  the  tranquillization  of  the  disturbances 
amongst  the  rural  population,  but  was  succeeded  by 
an  alarm  almost  as  great,  lest  the  political  agitation 
which,  in  1832,  took  the  form  of  the  cry  for  Church 
Reform,  should  end  in  destroying  what,  with  all  its 
defects,  seemed  to  him  the  greatest  instrument  of  social 
and  moral  good  existing  in  the  country.  It  was  this 
strong  conviction,  which,  in  1833,  originated  his  pam- 
phlet on  "  the  Principles  of  Church  Reform."  "  1 
hung  back,"  he  said,  "  as  long  as  I  could,  till  the  want 
was  so  urgent  that  I  sat  down  to  write,  because  I  could 
not  help  it."  But  with  him  preservation  was  only 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  291 

another  word  for  reform ;  and  here  the  reform  pro- 
posed was  great  in  proportion  ras  he  thought  the  stake 
at  issue  was  dear,  and  the  danger  formidable.  "  Most 
earnestly  do  I  wish  to  see  the  Establishment  reformed," 
was  the  closing  sentence  of  his  Postscript,  "  at  once, 
for  the  sake  of  its  greater  security,  and  its  greater  per- 
fection :  but,  whether  reformed  or  not,  may  God  in 
his  mercy  save  us  from  the  calamity  of  seeing  it  de- 
stroyed !  "  As  much  of  the  misunderstanding  of  his 
character  arose  from  a  partial  knowledge  of  this  pam- 
phlet, and  of  his  object  in  writing  it,  it  may  be  as  well 
to  give,  in  his  own  words,  the  answer  which  he  made  to 
a  friend,  in  1840,  to  a  general  charge  of  indiscretion 
brought  against  him. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  the  charge  of '  Indiscretion,'  apart 
of  course  from  the  truth  or  error  of  the  opinions  expressed, 
belongs  only  to  my  Church  Reform  Pamphlet.  Now,  I  am 
quite  ready  to  allow,  that  to  publish  such  a  pamphlet  in  1840, 
or  indeed  at  any  period  since  1834,  would  have  been  the 
height  of  indiscretion.  But  I  wrote  that  pamphlet  in  1833, 
when  most  men  —  myself  among  the  number  —  had  an  exag- 
gerated impression  of  the  strength  of  the  movement  party, 
and  of  the  changes  which  it  was  likely  to  effect.  My 
pamphlet  was  written  on  the  supposition  —  not  implied,  but 
expressed  repeatedly  —  that  the  Church  Establishment  was  in 
extreme  danger ;  and  therefore  I  proposed  remedies,  which, 
although  I  do  still  sincerely  believe  them  to  be  in  themselves 
right  and  good,  yet  would  be  manifestly  chimerical,  and  to 
advise  them  might  well  be  called  indiscreet,  had  not  the 
danger  and  alarm,  as  I  supposed,  been  imminent.  I  mistook, 
undoubtedly,  both  the  strength  and  intenseness  of  the  move- 
ment, and  the  weakness  of  the  party  opposed  to  it ;  but  I  do 
not  think  that  I  was  singular  in  my  error  —  many  persisted  in 
it ;  Lord  Stanley,  for  example,  even  hi  1834  and  the  subse- 
quent years  —  many  even  hold  it  still,  when  experience  has 
proved  its  fallacy.  But  the  startling  nature  of  my  proposals, 
which  I  suppose  constitutes  what  is  called  their  indiscretion, 
is  to  be  judged  by  the  state  of  things  in  1832-3,  and  not  by 
that  of  times  present.  Jephson  finds  that  his  patients  will 
adopt  a  very  strict  diet,  when  they  believe  themselves  to  be 
in  danger ;  but  he  would  be  very  indiscreet  if  he  prescribed 


292  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

it  to  a  man  who  felt  no  symptoms  of  indisposition,  for  the 
man  would  certainly  laugh  at  him,  although  perhaps  the 
diet  would  do  him  great  good,  if  he  could  be  induced  to 
adopt  it." 

The  plan  of  the  pamphlet  itself  is  threefold  ;  a  de- 
fence of  the  national  Establishment,  a  statement  of  the 
extreme  danger  to  which  it  was  exposed,  and  a  propo- 
sal of  what  seemed  to  him  the  only  means  of  averting 
this  danger  :  —  first,  by  a  design  for  comprehending 
the  Dissenters  within  the  pale  of  the  Establishment, 
without  compromise  of  principle  on  either  side ;  sec- 
ondly, by  various  details  intended  to  increase  its  actual 
efficiency.  The  sensation  created  by  the  appearance 
of  this  pamphlet  was  considerable.  Within  six  months 
of  its  publication  it  passed  through  four  editions.  It 
was  quoted  with  approbation  and  condemnation  by 
men  of  the  most  opposite  parties,  though  with  far  more 
of  condemnation  than  of  approbation.  Dissenters  ob- 
jected to  its  attacks  on  what  he  conceived  to  be  their 
sectarian  narrowness,  —  the  Clergy  of  the  Establish- 
ment to  its  supposed  latitudinarianism :  —  its  advocacy 
of  large  reforms  repelled  the  sympathy  of  many  Con- 
servatives —  its  advocacy  of  the  importance  of  religious 
institutions  repelled  the  sympathy  of  many  Liberals. 

Yet  still  it  was  impossible  not  to  see,  that  it  stood 
apart  from  all  the  rest  of  the  publications  for  and 
against  Church  Reform,  then  issuing  in  such  numbers 
from  the  press.  There  were  many,  both  at  the  time 
and  since,  who,  whilst  they  objected  to  its  details,  yet 
believed  its  statement  of  general  principles  to  be  true, 
and  only  to  be  deprecated  because  the  time  was  not  yet 
come  for  their  application.  There  were  many  again, 
who,  whilst  they  objected  to  its  general  principles,  yet 
admired  the  beauty  of  particular  passages,  or  the  wis- 
dom of  some  of  the  details.  Such  were  the  statement 
of  the  advantages  of  a  national  and  of  a  Christian  E&- 
tablishment,  —  his  defence  of  the  Bishop's  seats  in  Par* 
liament,  and  of  the  high  duties  of  the  Legislature. 
Such,  again,  were  the  suggestion  of  a  multiplication  o/ 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  293 

Bishoprics,  the  creation  of  suffragan  or  subordinate 
Bishops  —  the  revival  of  an  inferior  order  of  ministers 
or  deacons  in  the  Establishment  —  the  use  of  churches 
on  week  days  —  the  want  of  greater  variety  in  our 
forms  of  worship  than  is  afforded  by  the  ordinary 
course  of  morning  and  evening  prayer  —  all  of  them 
points  which,  being  then  proposed  nearly  for  the  first 
time,  have  since  received  the  sanction  of  a  large  part 
of  public  opinion,  if  not  of  public  practice. 

One  point  of  detail,  so  little  connected  with  his  gen- 
eral views  as  not  to  be  worth  mentioning  on  its  own 
account,  yet  deserves  to  be  recorded,  as  a  curious 
instance  of  the  disproportionate  attention  which  may 
sometimes  be  attracted  to  one  unimportant  passage ; 
namely,  the  suggestion  that  if  Dissenters  were  compre- 
hended within  the  Establishment,  the  use  of  different 
forms  of  worship  at  different  hours  of  the  Sunday  in 
the  parish  church,  might  tend  to  unite  the  worshippers 
more  closely  to  the  Church  of  their  fathers  and  to  one 
another.  This  suggestion,  torn  from  the  context  and 
represented  in  language  which  it  is  not  necessary  here 
to  specify,  is  the  one  sole  idea  which  many  have  con- 
ceived of  the  whole  pamphlet,  which  many  also  have 
conceived  of  his  whole  theological  teaching,  which  not 
a  few  have  'conceived  even  of  his  whole  character.  Yet 
this  suggestion  is  a  mere  detail,  only  recommended  con- 
ditionally, a  detail  occupying  two  pages  in  a  pamphlet 
of  eighty-eight ;  a  detail,  indeed,  which  in  other  coun- 
tries has  been  adopted  without  difficulty  amongst  Prot- 
estants, Greeks,  and  Roman  Catholics,  and  which,  in 
principle,  at  least,  has  since  been  sanctioned,  and  the 
alternate  use  in  one  instance  of  the  Prussian  and  Eng- 
lish Liturgies,  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and 
the  Bishop  of  London ;  —  but  a  detail  on  which  he 
himself  laid  no  stress  either  then  or  afterwards,  of 
which  no  mention  occurs  again  in  any  one  of  his  writ- 
ings, and  of  which,  in  common  with  all  the  other  de- 
tails in  the  pamphlet,  he  expressly  declared  that  he 
was  far  from  proposing  anything  with  "  equal  confi- 

25* 


294  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

dence  to  that  with  which  he  maintained  the  princi- 
ples themselves  ; "  and  that  "  he  was  not  anxious  about 
any  particular  measure  which  he  may  have  ventured 
to  recommend,  if  anything  could  be  suggested  by 
others,  which  would  effect  the  same  great  object  of 
comprehension  more  completely."  (Preface  to  Prin- 
ciples of  Church  Reform,  p.  iv.) 

But,  independently  of  the  actual  matter  of  the 
pamphlet,  its  publication  was  the  signal  for  the  general 
explosion  of  the  large  amount  of  apprehension  or  sus- 
picion, which  had  been  in  so  many  minds  contracted 
against  him  since  he  became  known  to  the  public  — 
amongst  ordinary  men,  from  his  Pamphlet  on  the 
Roman  Catholic  claims  —  amongst  more  thinking  men, 
from  his  Essay  on  the  Interpretation  of  Scripture  — 
amongst  men  in  general,  from  the  union  of  undefined 
fear  and  dislike  which  is  almost  sure  to  be  inspired  by 
the  unwelcome  presence  of  a  man  who  has  resolution 
to  propose,  earnestness  to  attempt,  and  energy  to  effect, 
any  great  change  either  in  public  opinion  or  in  exist- 
ing institutions.  The  storm,  which  had  thus  been 
gathering  for  some  time  past,  now  burst  upon  him,  — 
beginning  in  theological  and  political  opposition,  but 
gradually  including  within  its  sweep  every  topic,  per- 
sonal or  professional,  which  could  expose  him  to  oblo- 
quy, —  and  continued  to  rage  for  the  next  four  years 
of  his  life.  The  neighboring  county  paper  maintained 
an  almost  weekly  attack  upon  him  ;  the  more  extreme 
of  the  London  Conservative  newspapers  echoed  these 
attacks  with  additions  of  their  own  ;  the  official  dinner 
which  usually  accompanied  the  Easter  speeches  at 
Rugby,  was,  on  one  occasion,  turned  into  a  scene  of 
uproar  by  the  endeavor  to  introduce  into  it  political 
toasts  ;  in  tile  University  pulpit  at  Oxford  he  was  de- 
nounced almost  by  name  ;  every  incautious  act  or 
word  in  the  management  of  the  school,  almost  every 
sickness  amongst  the  boys,  was  eagerly  used  as  a 
handle  against  him.  Charges  which,  in  ordinary  cases, 
would  have  passed  by  unnoticed,  fell  with  double  force 


LIFE   OF    DR.  ARNOLD.  295 

on  a  man  already  marked  out  for  public  odium ;  per- 
sons, who  naturally  would  have  been  the  last  to  sus- 
pect him,  took  up  and  repeated  almost  involuntarily 
the  invectives  which  they  heard  reverberated  around 
them  in  all  directions  ;  the  opponents  of  any  new  sys- 
tem of  education  were  ready  to  assail  every  change 
which  he  had  introduced ;  the  opponents  of  the  old 
discipline  of  public  schools  were  ready  to  assail  every 
support  which  he  gave  to  it ;  the  general  sale  of  his 
Sermons  was  almost  stopped ;  even  his  personal  ac- 
quaintance began  to  look  upon  him  with  alarm,  some 
dropped  their  intercourse  with  him  altogether,  hardly 
any  were  able  fully  to  sympathize  with  him,  and  almost 
ah1  remonstrated. 

He  was  himself  startled,  but  not  moved  by  this  con- 
tinued outcry.  It  was  indeed  "  nearly  the  worst  pain 
which  he  had  ever  felt,  to  see  the  impression  which 
either  his  writings,  or  his  supposed  opinions,  produced 
on  those  whom  he  most  dearly  valued  ;  "  it  was  "  a 
trying  thing  to  one  who  held  his  own  opinions  as 
strongly  as  he  did,  to  be  taxed  continually  with  indif- 
ference to  truth  ;  "  and  at  times  even  his  vigorous 
health  and  spirits  seemed  to  fail  under  the  sense  of  the 
estrangement  of  friends,  or  yet  more,  under  his  aver- 
sion to  the  approbation  of  some  who  were  induced  by 
the  clamor  against  him  to  claim  him  as  their  own  ally. 
But  the  public  attacks  upon  himself  he  treated  with 
indifference.  Those  which  related  to  the  school  he 
was  in  one  or  two  instances  at  their  outset  induced 
to  notice  ;  but  he  soon  formed  a  determination,  which 
he  maintained  till  they  died  away  altogether,  never  to 
offer  any  reply,  or  even  explanation,  except  to  his  own 
personal  friends.  "  My  resolution  is  fixed,"  he  said, 
"  to  let  them  alone,  and  on  no  account  to  condescend 
to  answer  them  in  the  newspapers.  All  that  is  wanted 
is  to  inspire  firmness  into  the  minds  of  those  engaged 
in  the  conduct  of  the  school,  lest  their  own  confidence 
should  be  impaired  by  a  succession  of  attacks,  which  I 
suppose  is  unparalleled  in  the  experience  of  schools." 


296  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

Nor  was  he  turned  in  the  slightest  degree  from  hia 
principles.  Knowing,  from  the  example  of  those  who 
presided  over  other  schools,  that,  had  he  been  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  questions  at  issue,  he  might  have 
taken  a  far  more  active  part  in  public  matters  without 
provoking  any  censure,  and  conscious  that  his  exertions 
in  the  school  were  as  efficient  as  ever,  he  felt  it  due 
alike  to  himself,  his  principles,  and  his  position,  never 
to  concede  that  he  had  acted  inconsistently  with  the 
duties  of  his  situation  ;  and  therefore  in  the  critical 
election  of  the  winter  of  1834,  when  the  outcry  against 
him  was  at  its  height,  he  did  not  shrink  from  coming 
up  from  Westmoreland  to  Warwickshire  to  vote  for 
the  Liberal  candidate,  foreseeing,  as  he  must  have 
done,  the  burst  of  indignation  which  followed. 

And,  whilst  the  clamor  against  his  pamphlet  may 
have  increased  his  original  diffidence  in  the  practica- 
bility of  its  details,  it  only  drove  him  to  a  more  deter- 
minate examination  and  development  of  its  principles, 
which  from  this  time  forward  assumed  that  coherent 
form  which  was  the  basis  of  all  his  future  writings. 
What  he  now  conceived  and  expressed  in  a  systematic 
shape,  had  indeed  always  floated  before  him  in  a  ruder 
and  more  practical  form,  and  in  his  later  life  it  re- 
ceived various  enlargements  and  modifications.  But 
in  substance,  his  opinions,  which  up  to  this  time  had 
been  forming,  were,  after  it,  formed  ;  he  had  now 
reached  that  period  of  life  after  which  any  change  of 
view  is  proverbially  difficult ;  he  had  now  arrived  at 
that  stage  in  the  progress  of  his  mind,  to  which  all  his 
previous  inquiries  had  contributed,  and  from  which  all 
his  subsequent  inquiries  naturally  resulted.  His  views 
of  national  education  became  fixed  in  the  principles, 
which  he  expressed  in  his  favorite  watchwords  at 
this  time,  "  Christianity  without  Sectarianism,"  and 
"  Comprehension  without  Compromise  ; "  and  which 
he  developed  at  some  length  in  an  (unpublished) 
"  Letter  on  the  Admission  of  Dissenters  to  the  Uni- 
rersities,"  written  in  1834.  His  long-cherished  views 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  297 

of  the  identity  of  Church  and  State,  he  now  first  un- 
folded in  his  Postscript  to  the  pamphlet  on  "  Church 
Reform,"  and  in  the  first  of  his  fragments  on  that 
subject,  written  in  1834-35.  Against  what  he  con- 
ceived to  be  the  profane  and  secular  view  of  the  State, 
he  protested  in  the  Preface  to  his  third  volume  of 
Thucydides,  and  against  the  practical  measure  of  ad- 
mitting Jews  to  a  share  in  the  supreme  legislature,  he 
was  at  this  time  more  than  once  on  the  point  of  peti- 
tioning, in  his  own  sole  name.  Against  what  he  con- 
ceived to  be  the  ceremonial  view  of  the  Church,  and 
the  technical  and  formal  view  of  Christian  Theology, 
he  protested  in  the  Preface  and  First  Appendix  to  his 
third  volume  of  Sermons ;  whilst  against  the  then 
incipient  school  of  Oxford  Divinity,  he  was  anxious  to 
circulate  tracts  vindicating  the  King's  Supremacy,  and 
tracing  in  its  opinions  the  Judaizing  principles  which 
prevailed  in  the  apostolical  age.  And  he  still  "  dreamt 
of  something  like  a  Magazine  for  the  poor;  feeling 
sure,  from  the  abuse  lavished  upon  him,  that  a  man  of 
no  party,  as  he  has  no  chance  of  being  listened  to  by 
the  half-informed,  is  the  very  person  who  is  wanted 
to  speak  to  the  honest  uninformed." 

From  the  fermentation  against  him,  of  which  the 
Midland  Counties  were  the  focus,  he  turned  with  a  new 
and  increasing  delight  to  his  place  in  Westmoreland, 
now  doubly  endeared  to  him  as  his  natural  home,  by 
its  contrast  with  the  atmosphere  of  excitement  with 
which  he  was  surrounded  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Rugby.  His  more  strictly  professional  pursuits  also 
went  on  undisturbed ;  the  last  and  best  volume  of 
his  edition  of  Thucydides  appeared  in  1835,  and  in 
1833  he  resumed  his  Roman  History,  which  he  had 
long  laid  aside.  It  might  seem  strange  that  he  should 
undertake  a  work  of  such  magnitude,  at  a  tune  when 
his  chief  interest  was  more  than  ever  fixed  on  the 
great  questions  of  political  and  theological  philosophy. 
His  love  for  ancient  history  was  doubtless  in  itself  a 
great  inducement  to  continue  his  connection  with  it 


298  LIFE  OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

after  his  completion  of  the  edition  of  Thucydides. 
But  besides,  and  perhaps  even  more  than  this,  was 
the  strong  impression  that  on  those  subjects,  which 
he  himself  had  most  at  heart,  it  was  impossible  for 
him  to  bear  up  against  the  tide  of  misunderstanding 
and  prejudice  with  which  he  was  met,  and  that  all 
hope  for  the  present  of  direct  influence  over  his  coun- 
trymen was  cut  off.  His  only  choice,  therefore,  lay  in 
devoting  himself  to  some  work,  which,  whilst  it  was 
more  or  less  connected  with  his  professional  pursuits, 
would  afford  him  in  the  past  a  refuge  from  the  excite- 
ment and  confusion  of  the  present.  What  Fox  How 
was  to  Rugby,  that  the  Roman  History  was  to  the 
painful  and  conflicting  thoughts  roused  by  his  writings 
on  political  and  theological  subjects. 

But  besides  the  refreshment  of  Westmoreland  scenery 
and  of  ancient  greatness,  he  must  have  derived  a  yet 
deeper  comfort  from  his  increasing  influence  on  the 
school.  Greater  as  it  probably  was  at  a  later  period 
over  the  school  generally,  yet  over  individual  boys  it 
never  was  so  great  as  at  the  period  when  the  clamor 
to  which  he  was  exposed  from  without  had  reached  its 
highest  pitch.  Then,  when  the  institution  seemed 
most  likely  to  suffer  from  the  unexampled  vehemence 
with  which  it  was  assailed  through  him,  began  a  series 
of  the  greatest  successes  at  both  Universities  which  it 
had  ever  known ;  then  when  he  was  most  accused  of  mis- 
government  of  the  place,  he  laid  that  firm  hold  on  the 
esteem  and  affections  of  the  elder  boys,  which  he  never 
afterwards  lost.  Then,  more  than  at  any  other  tune, 
when  his  old  friends  and  acquaintance  were  falling 
back  from  him  in  alarm,  he  saw  those  growing  up 
under  his  charge  of  whom  it  may  be  truly  said,  that 
they  would  have  been  willing  to  die  for  his  sake. 

Here,  again,  the  course  of  his  sermons  in  the  third 
volume  gives  us  a  faithful  transcript  of  his  feelings  ; 
whilst  his  increased  confidence  in  the  school  appears 
throughout  in  the  increased  affection  of  their  tone,  the 
general  subjects  which  he  then  chose  for  publication, 


LIFE    OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  299 

indicate  no  less  the  points  forced  upon  him  by  the  con- 
troversy of  the  last  two  years,  —  the  evils  of  sectarian- 
ism,— the  necessity  of  asserting  the  authority  of  "  Law, 
which  Jacobinism  and  Fanaticism  are  alike  combining 
to  destroy,"  —  Christianity,  as  being  the  sovereign 
science  of  life  in  all  its  branches,  and  especially  in  its 
aspect  of  presenting  emphatically  the  Revelation  of 
God  in  Christ.  And  in  other  parts,  it  is  impossible  to 
mistake  the  deep  personal  experience  with  which  he 
spoke  of  the  pain  of  severance  from  sympathy  and  of 
the  evil  of  party  spirit ;  of  "  the  reproach  and  suspicion 
of  cold  friendship  and  zealous  enmity,"  which  is  the 
portion  of  those  who  strive  to  follow  no  party  but 
Christ's  —  of  the  prospect  that  if  "  we  oppose  any  pre- 
vailing opinion  or  habit  of  the  day,  the  fruits  of  a  life's 
labor,  as  far  as  earth  is  concerned,  are  presently  sacri- 
ficed," and  ';  we  are  reviled  instead  of  respected,"  and 
"  every  word  and  action  of  our  lives  misrepresented 
and  condemned,"  —  of  the  manner  in  which  "  the 
blessed  Apostle,  St.  Paul,  whose  name  is  now  loved 
and  reverenced  from  one  end  of  the  Church  of  Christ 
to  the  other,  was  treated  by  his  fellow-Christians  at 
Rome,  as  no  better  than  a  latitudinarian  and  a 
heretic."  * 

L.      TO    THE   REV.   J.   HEARN. 

Rydal,  January  1, 1833. 

New  Year's  Day  is  in  this  part  of  the  country 

regarded  as  a  great  festival,  and  we  have  had  prayers  this 
morning,  even  in  our  village  chapel  at  Rydal.  May  God 
bless  us  in  all  our  doings  in  the  year  that  is  now  begun, 
and  make  us  increase  more  and  more  in  the  knowledge  and 
love  of  Himself  and  of  His  Son ;  that  it  may  be  blessed  to  us, 
whether  we  live  to  see  the  end  of  it  on  earth  or  no. 

I  owe  you  very  much  for  the  great  kindness  of  your  letters, 
and  thank  you  earnestly  for  your  prayers.  Mine  is  a  busy 
life,  so  busy  that  I  have  great  need  of  not  losing  my  intervals 
of  sacred  rest ;  so  taken  up  hi  teaching  others,  that  I  have 

*  Sermons,  vol.  iii.  pp.  263,  363,  360. 


300  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

need  of  especial  prayer  and  labor,  lest  I  live  with  my  own 

spirit  untaught  in  the  wisdom  of  God It  grieves 

me  more  than  I  can  say,  to  find  so  much  intolerance ;  by 
which  I  mean  over-estimating  our  points  of  difference,  and 
under-estimating  our  points  of  agreement  I  am  by  no  means 
indifferent  to  truth  and  error,  and  hold  my  own  opinions  as 
decidedly  as  any  man ;  which  of  course  implies  a  conviction 
that  the  opposite  opinions  are  erroneous.  In  many  cases, 
I  think  them  not  only  erroneous,  but  mischievous ;  still  they 
exist  in  men,  whom  I  know  to  be  thoroughly  in  earnest, 
fearing  God  and  loving  Christ,  and  it  seems  to  me  to  be  a 
waste  of  time,  which  we  can  ill  afford,  and  a  sort  of  quarrel 
"  by  the  way,"  which  our  Christian  vow  of  enmity  against 
moral  evil  makes  utterly  unseasonable,  when  Christians 
suspend  their  great  business  and  loosen  the  bond  of  their 
union  with  each  other  by  venting  fruitless  regrets  and  con- 
plaints  against  one  another's  errors,  instead  of  laboring  to 
lessen  one  another's  sins.  For  coldness  of  spirit  and  negli- 
gence of  our  duty,  and  growing  worldliness,  are  things  which 
we  should  thank  our  friends  for  warning  us  against;  but 
when  they  quarrel  with  our  opinions,  which  we  conscien- 
tiously hold,  it  merely  provokes  us  to  justify  ourselves,  and 
to  insist  that  we  are  right  and  they  wrong. 

We  arrived  here  on  Saturday,  and  on  Sunday  night  there 
fell  a  deep  snow,  which  is  now  however  melting ;  otherwise 
it  would  do  more  than  anything  else  to  spoil  this  unspoilable 
country.  We  are  living  in  a  little  nook  under  one  of  the 
mountains,  as  snug  and  sheltered  as  can  be,  and  I  have  got 
plenty  of  work  to  do  within  doors,  let  the  snow  last  as  long 
as  it  will. 

LI.      TO   W.   K.   HAMILTON,   ESQ. 

Rydal,  January  16, 1883. 

£  After  speaking  of  his  going  to  Rome.]  It  stirs  up  many 
thoughts  to  fancy  you  at  Rome.  I  never  saw  any  place 
which  so  interested  me,  and  next  to  it,  but,  longissimo  inter- 
vallo,  Venice  —  then  of  the  towns  of  Italy,  Genoa  —  and 
then  Pisa  and  Verona.  I  cannot  care  for  Florence  or  for 

Milan  or  for  Turin For  me  this  country  contains 

all  that  I  wish  or  want,  and  no  travelling,  even  in  Italy, 
could  give  me  the  delight  of  thus  living  amidst  the  moun- 
tains, and  seeing  and  loving  them  in  all  their  moods  and  in 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  301 

all  mine.  I  have  been  writing  on  Church  Reform,  and 
urging  an  union  with  the  Dissenters  as  the  only  thing  that 
can  procure  to  us  the  blessing  of  an  established  Christianity ; 
for  the  Dissenters  are  strong  enough  to  turn  the  scale  either 
for  an  establishment  or  against  one  ;  and  at  present  they  are 
leagued  with  the  antichristian  party  against  one,  and  will 
destroy  it  utterly  if  they  are  not  taken  into  the  camp  in  the 
defence  of  it.  And  if  we  sacrifice  that  phantom  Uniformity, 
which  has  been  our  curse  ever  since  the  Reformation,  I  am 
fully  persuaded  that  an  union  might  be  effected  without 
difficulty.  But  God  knows  what  will  come  to  pass,  and  none 
besides,  for  we  all  seem  groping  about  in  the  dark  together. 
I  trust,  however,  that  we  shall  be  spared  the  worst  evil  of 
all,  war. 

LII.       TO    THE    ARCHBISHOP  OF    DUBLIN. 

Rydal,  January  17,  1833. 

As  my  pamphlet  will  probably  reach  you  next 

week,  I  wish  you  to  hear  something  from  me  on  the  subject 
beforehand.  My  reasons  for  writing  it  were  chiefly  because 
the  reform  proposed  by  Lord  Henley  and  others  seemed  to 
me  not  only  insufficient,  but  of  a  wrong  kind ;  and  because  I 
have  heard  the  American  doctrine  of  every  man  paying  his 
minister  as  he  would  his  lawyer,  advanced  and  supported  in 
high  quarters,  where  it  sounded  alarming.  I  was  also  struck 
by  the  great  vehemence  displayed  by  the  Dissenters  at  the 
late  elections,  and  by  the  refusal  to  pay  Church-rates  at  Bir- 
mingham. Nothing,  as  it  seems  to  me,  can  save  the  Church, 
but  an  union  with  the  Dissenters ;  now  they  are  leagued 
with  the  antichristian  party,  and  no  merely  internal  reforms 
in  the  administration  of  the  actual  system  will,  I  think,  or 
can  satisfy  them.  Further,  Lord  Henley's  notion  about  a 
convocation,  and  Bishops  not  sitting  in  Parliament,  and 
laymen  not  meddling  with  Church  doctrine,  seemed  to  me 
so  dangerous  a  compound  of  the  worst  errors  of  Popery  and 
Evangelicalism  combined,  and  one  so  suited  to  the  interests 
of  the  Devil  and  his  numerous  party,  that  I  was  very  desir- 
ous of  protesting  against  it.  However,  the  pamphlet  will 
tell  its  own  story,  and  I  think  it  can  do  no  harm,  even  if  it 
does  no  good. 

VOL.  i.  26 


302  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 


LIII.       TO    THE    SAME. 

February  1,  1833. 

As  for  my  coming  down  into  Westmoreland,  I 

may  almost  say  that  it  is  to  satisfy  a  physical  want  in  my 
nature  which  craves  after  the  enjoyment  of  nature,  and  for 
nine  months  in  the  year  can  find  nothing  to  satisfy  it.  I 
agree  with  old  Keble,*  that  one  does  not  need  mountains  and 
lakes  for  this ;  the  Thames  at  Laleham  —  Bagley  Wood,  and 
Shotover  at  Oxford  were  quite  enough  for  it.  I  only  know 
of  five  counties  in  England,  which  cannot  supply  it ;  and  I 
am  unluckily  perched  down  in  one  of  them.  These  five  are 
Warwick,  Northampton,  Huntingdon,  Cambridge,  and  Bed- 
ford. I  should  add,  perhaps,  Rutland,  and  you  cannot  name 
a  seventh  ;  for  Suffolk,  which  is  otherwise  just  as  bad,  has  its 
bit  of  sea-coast  But  Halesworth,  so  fer  as  I  remember  it, 
would  be  just  as  bad  as  Rugby.  We  have  no  hills  —  no  plains 
—  not  a  single  wood,  and  but  one  single  copse :  no  heath  — 
no  down  —  no  rock  —  no  river  —  no  clear  stream  —  scarcely 
any  flowers,  for  the  lias  is  particularly  poor  in  them  —  nothing 
but  one  endless  monotony  of  inclosed  fields  and  hedge-row 
trees.  This  is  to  me  a  daily  privation ;  it  robs  me  of  what 
is  naturally  my  anti-attrition ;  and  as  I  grow  older,  I  begin 
to  feel  it.  My  constitution  is  sound,  but  not  strong ;  and  I 
feel  any  little  pressure  or  annoyance  more  than  I  used  to 
do;  and  the  positive  dulness  of  the  country  about  Rugby 
makes  it  to  me  a  mere  working-place ;  I  cannot  expatiate 
there  even  in  my  walks.  So,  in  the  holidays,  I  have  an 
absolute  craving  for  the  enjoyment  of  nature,  and  this  country 
suits  me  better  than  anything  else,  because  we  can  be  all 
together,  because  we  can  enjoy  the  society,  and  because  I 
can  do  something  in  the  way  of  work  besides 

Two  things  press  upon  me  unabatedly  —  my  wish  for  a 
Bible,  such  as  I  have  spoken  of  before ;  and  my  wish  for 
something  systematic  for  the  instruction  of  the  poor.  In  my 
particular  case,  undoubtedly,  -the  stamp-duties  are  an  evil ; 
for  I  still  think,  that  a  newspaper  alone  can  help  to  cure  the 
evil  which  newspapers  have  done  and  are  doing ;  the  events 
of  the  day  are  a  definite  subject  to  which  instruction  can  be 
attached  in  the  best  possible  manner ;  the  Penny  and  Satur- 
day Magazines  are  all  ramble-scramble.  I  think  often  of  a 


*  Christian  Year,  First  Sunday  after  Epiphany. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  303 

Warwickshire  Magazine,  to  appear  monthly,  and  so  escape 
the  stamp-duties,  whilst  events  at  a  month's  end  are  still 
fresh  enough  to  interest.  We  ought  to  have,  in  Birmingham 
and  Coventry,  good  and  able  men  enough,  and  with  sufficient 
variety  of  knowledge,  for  such  a  work.  But  between  the 
want  of  will  and  the  want  of  power,  the  ten  who  were  vainly 
sought  to  save  Sodom,  will  be  as  vainly  sought  for  now. 

LIV.       TO    REV.    J.    TUCKER. 
(On  his  leaving  England  for  India,  as  a  Missionary.) 

February,  1833. 

[After  speaking  of  the  differences  of  tastes  and  habits 
which  had  interfered  with  their  having  common  subjects  of 

interest.] It  is  my  joy  to  think  that  there  will  be 

a  day  when  these  things  will  all  vanish  in  the  intense  con- 
sciousness of  what  we  both  have  in  common.  I  owe  you 
much  more  than  I  can  well  pay,  indeed,  for  your  influence  on 
my  mind  and  character  in  early  life.  The  freshness  of  our 
Oxford  life  is  continually  present  with  me,  and  especially  of 
the  latter  part  of  it.  How  well  I  recollect  when  you  and 
Cornish  did  duty  for  your  first  time  at  Begbrook  and  Yarn- 
ton,  and  when  we  had  one  of  our  last  skirmishes  together  in 
a  walk  to  Garsington  in  March,  1819.  All  that  period  was 
working  for  me  constant  good,  and  how  delightful  is  it  to 
have  our  University  recollections  so  free  from  the  fever  of 
intellectual  competition  or  parties  or  jealousies  of  any  kind 
whatever.  I  love  also  to  think  of  our  happy  meeting  in  later 
life,  when  Cornish  and  I,  with  our  wives  and  children,  were 
with  you  at  Mailing,  in  1823. 

Meantime,  even  in  a  temporal  point  of  view,  you 

are  going  from  what  bids  fair,  I  fear,  to  deserve  the  name  of 
a  City  of  Destruction.  The  state  of  Europe  is  indeed  fear- 
ful ;  and  that  of  England,  I  verily  think,  worst  of  ah".  What 
is  coming,  none  can  foresee,  but  every  symptom  is  alarming ; 
above  all,  the  extraordinary  dearth  of  men  professing  to  act 
in  the  fear  of  God,  and  not  being  fanatics ;  as  parties,  the 
High  Churchmen,  the  Evangelicals,  and  the  Dissenters,  seem 
to  me  almost  equally  bad,  and  how  many  good  men  can  be 
found  who  do  not  belong  to  one  of  them  ? 

Your  godson  is  now  turned  of  ten  years  old,  and  I  think 
of  keeping  him  at  home  for  some  time  to  familiarize  him 
with  home  feelings I  am  sure  that  we  shall  have 


304  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

your  prayers  for  his  bringing  forth  fruit  unto  life  eternal. 

And  now  farewell,  my  dear  friend;  may   God  be 

with  you  always  through  Jesus  Christ,  and  may  He  bless  all 
your  works  to  His  glory  and  your  own  salvation.  You  will 
carry  with  you,  as  long  as  you  live,  my  most  affectionate  and 
grateful  remembrances,  and  my  earnest  wishes  for  all  good  to 
you,  temporal  and  spiritual. 

LV.     TO    AN    OLD    PUPIL    AT    OXFORD.       (A.)  * 

February  25, 1833. 

It  always  grieves  me  to  hear  that  a  man  does  not  like 
Oxford.  I  was  so  happy  there  myself,  and  above  all  so  happy 
in  my  friends,  that  its  associations  to  my  mind  are  purely 
delightful.  But,  of  course,  in  this  respect,  everything  de- 
pends upon  the  society  you  fall  into.  If  this  be  uncongenial, 
the  place  can  have  no  other  attractions  than  those  of  a  town 
full  of  good  libraries. 

The  more  we  are  destitute  of  opportunities  for 

indulging  our  feelings,  as  is  the  case  when  we  live  in  uncon- 
genial society,  the  more  we  are  apt  to  crisp  and  harden  our 
outward  manner  to  save  our  real  feelings  from  exposure. 
Thus  I  believe  that  some  of  the  most  delicate-minded  men 
get  to  appear  actually  coarse  from  their  unsuccessful  efforts 
to  mask  their  real  nature.  And  I  have  known  men  disagree- 
ably forward  from  their  shyness.  But  I  doubt  whether  a  man 
does  not  suffer  from  a  habit  of  self-constraint,  and  whether 
his  feelings  do  not  become  really,  as  well  as  apparently, 
chilled.  It  is  an  immense  blessing  to  be  perfectly  callous  to 
ridicule ;  or,  which  comes  to  the  same  thing,  to  be  conscious 
thoroughly  that  what  we  have  in  us  of  noble  and  delicate  is 
not  ridiculous  to  any  but  fools,  and  that,  if  fools  will  laugh, 
wise  men  will  do  well  to  let  them. 

I  shall  really  be  very  glad  to  hear  from  you  at  any  time, 
and  I  will  write  to  the  best  of  my  power  on  any  subject  on 
which  you  want  to  know  my  opinion.  As  for  anything  more, 
I  believe  that  the  one  great  lesson  for  us  all  is,  that  we 
should  daily  pray  for  an  "  increase  of  faith."  There  is 
enough  of  iniquity  abounding  to  make  our  love  in  danger  of 
waxing  cold ;  it  is  well  said,  therefore,  u  Let  not  your  heart 


*  The  letters  of  the  alphabet  thus  affixed  are  intended  to  distinguish 
between  the  different  pupils  so  addresstd. 


LIFE   OF  DB.   ARNOLD.  305 

be  troubled :  ye  believe  in  God,  believe  also  m  Me?  By 
which  I  understand  that  it  is  not  so  much  general  notions  of 
Providence  which  are  our  best  support,  but  a  sense  of  the 
personal  interest,  if  I  may  so  speak,  taken  in  our  welfare  by 
Him  who  died  for  us  and  rose  again.  May  his  Spirit  strength- 
en us  to  do  his  will,  and  to  bear  it,  in  power,  in  love,  and  in 
wisdom.  God  bless  you. 

LVI.     TO    THE    KEY.  DR.  HAWKINS. 

Rugby,  March  5,  1833. 

[After  speaking  of  a  parcel  sent  to  him.]  I  will  not  con- 
ceal, however,  that  my  motive  in  writing  to  you  immediately 
is  to  notice  what  you  say  of  my  pamphlet  on  Church  Reform. 
I  did  not  send  it  you  for  two  reasons ;  first,  because  I  feared 
that  you  would  not  like  it ;  secondly,  because  a  pamphlet  in 
general  is  not  worth  the  carriage.  And  I  should  be  ashamed 
of  myself  if  I  were  annoyed  by  your  expressing  your  total 
disagreement  with  its  principles  or  with  its  conclusions.  But 
I  do  protest  most  strongly  against  your  charge  of  writing 
"  with  haste  and  without  consideration  ;  "  of  writing  "  on  sub- 
jects which  I  have  not  studied  and  do  not  understand,"  and 
"  which  are  not  within  my  proper  province."  You  cannot 
possibly  know  that  I  wrote  in  haste,  or  that  I  have  not 
studied  the  question ;  and  I  think,  however  much  I  might 
differ  from  any  opinion  of  yours,  I  should  scarcely  venture  to 
say  that  you  had  written  on  what  you  did  not  understand.  I 
regret  exceedingly  the  use  of  this  kind  of  language  in  Oxford, 

(for wrote  me  exactly  in  the  same  strain,)  because  it 

seems  to  me  to  indicate  a  temper,  not  the  best  suited  either 
to  the  state  of  knowledge  or  of  feeling  in  other  parts  of  the 
kingdom.  It  so  happens  that  the  subject  of  conformity,  of 
communion,  of  the  relations  of  Church  and  State,  of  Church 
Government,  &c.,  is  one  which  I  have  studied  more  than  any 
other  which  I  could  name.  I  have  read  very  largely  about 
it,  and  thought  about  it  habitually  for  several  years,  and  I 
must  say,  that,  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  ago,  I  had  read 
enough  of  what  were  called  orthodox  books  upon  such  matters, 
to  be  satisfied  of  their  shallowness  and  confusion.  I  do  not 
quarrel  with  you  for  coming  to  a  different  conclusion,  but  I 
do  utterly  deny  that  you  are  entitled  to  tax  me  with  not 
being  just  as  qualified  as  yourself  to  form  a  conclusion.  I  do 
not  know  that  it  gives  me  much  pain,  when  my  friends  write 
26*  T 


306  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

what  I  do  not  like ;  for  so  long  as  I  believe  them  to  be  honest, 
I  do  not  think  that  they  will  be  the  worse  for  it ;  but  as- 
suredly my  convictions  of  the  utter  falsehood  and  mischievous 
tendency  of  their  opinions  are  quite  as  strong  as  theirs  can  be 
of  mine  ;  though  I  do  not  expect  to  convert  them  to  my  own 
views  for  many  reasons.  As  to  the  pamphlet,  I  am  now  writ- 
ing a  Postscript  for  the  fourth  edition  of  it,  with  some  quota- 
tions in  justification  of  some  of  my  positions.  [After  mention- 
ing a  pamphlet  by  a  person  of  junior  standing  to  himself.] 
If  any  respectable  man  of  my  own  age  chooses  to  attack  my 
principles,  I  am  perfectly  ready  to  meet  him,  and  he  shall  see 
at  any  rate  whether  I  have  studied  the  question  or  no.  I  wish 
that  I  knew  as  much  about  Thucydides,  which  you  think  that 
I  do  understand. 

I  hope  that  I  have  expressed  myself  clearly.  I  complain 
merely  of  the  charge  of  writing  hastily  on  a  subject  which  I 
have  not  studied.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  most  opposite  to 
the  truth.  But  if  you  say  that  you  think  I  have  studied  it 
to  very  bad  purpose,  and  am  all  wrong  about  it,  I  have  only 
to  say  that  I  think  differently ;  but  I  should  not  in  the  least 
complain  of  your  giving  me  your  own  opinion  in  the  plainest 
terms  that  you  chose. 

LVII.    TO    THE    SAME. 

Rugby,  March  10, 1883. 

I  thank  you  entirely  for  your  last  letter ;  it  is  at  once  kind 
and  manly,  and  I  much  value  your  notice  of  particular  points 
in  the  pamphlet  which  you  think  wrong.  It  is  very  true 
that  it  was  written  hastily,  i.  e.  penned,  for  the  time  was  short ; 
but  it  is  no  less  true  that  the  matter  of  it,  as  far  as  its  general 
principles  are  concerned,  had  been  thought  over  in  my  mind 
again  and  again.  In  fact,  my  difficulty  was  how  to  write 
sufficiently  briefly,  for  I  have  matter  enough  to  fill  a  volume  ; 
and  some  of  the  propositions,  which  I  have  heard  objected  to, 
as  thrown  out  at  random,  are  to  my  own  mind  the  results  of 
a  very  full  consideration  of  the  case  ;  although  I  have  con- 
tented myself  with  putting  down  the  conclusion  and  omitting 
the  premises.  [After  answering  a  question  of  history.]  I  fear, 
indeed,  that  our  differences  of  opinion  on  many  points  of 
which  I  have  written  must  be  exceedingly  wide.  I  am  con- 
scious that  I  have  a  great  deal  to  learn  ;  and,  if  I  live  ten 
years  more,  I  hope  I  shall  be  wiser  than  I  am  now.  Still,  I 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  307 

am  not  a  boy,  nor  do  I  believe  that  any  one  of  my  friends 
has  arrived  at  his  opinions  with  more  deliberation  and  deeper 
thought  than  I  have  at  mine.  And  you  should  remember, 
that  if  many  of  my  notions  indicate  in  your  judgment  an  im- 
perfect acquaintance  with  the  subject,  this  is  exactly  the  im- 
pression which  the  opposite  notions  leave  on  my  mind ;  and, 
as  I  know  it  to  be  quite  possible  that  a  conclusion,  which 
seems  to  me  mere  folly  and  ignorance,  may  really  rest  on 
some  proof,  of  which  I  am  wholly  ignorant,  and  which  to  the 
writer's  mind  may  have  been  so  familiar  from  long  habit  as 
to  seem  quite  superfluous  to  be  stated  —  so  it  is  equally  possi- 
ble, that  what  appears  folly  or  ignorance  to  you,  may  also  be 
justified  by  a  view  of  the  question  which  has  escaped  your 
notice,  and  Avhich  I  may  happen  to  have  hit  upon. 

Undoubtedly  I  should  think  it  wrong  to  write  on  any  sub- 
ject, and  much  more  such  a  subject  as  the  Church,  without 
having  considered  it.  It  can  hardly  be  an  honest  opinion,  if 
it  be  expressed  confidently,  without  a  consciousness  of  having 
sufficient  reason  for  it.  And  though  on  subjects  within  the 
reach  of  our  faculties,  sufficient  consideration,  in  the  strict 
sense,  must  preclude  error,  (for  all  error  must  arise  either 
from  some  premises  being  unknown,  or  from  some  faulty  con- 
clusion being  derived  from  those  which  we  do  know,)  yet  of 
course,  for  our  moral  justification,  it  is  sufficient  that  we  have 
considered  it  as  well  as  we  could,  and  so,  that  we  seem  to  have 
a  competent  understanding  of  it  compared  with  other  men  — 
to  be  able  to  communicate  some  truth  to  others,  while  we  re- 
ceive truths  from  them  in  return. 

But  my  main  object  in  writing  was  to  thank  you  for  your 
letter,  and  to  assure  you  that  my  feeling  of  anger  is  quite 
subsided,  if  anger  it  could  be  called.  Yet  I  think  I  had  a 
right  to  complain  of  the  tone  of  decided  condemnation  which 
ran  through  your  first  letter,  assuming  that  I  had  written 
without  reflection  and  without  study,  because  my  notions 
were  different  from  yours ;  and  I  think  that,  had  I  applied 
similar  expressions  to  any  work  of  yours,  you  would  have 
been  annoyed  as  much  as  I  was,  and  have  thought  that  I  had 
judged  you  rather  unfairly.  But  enough  of  this  ;  and  I  will 
only  hope  that  my  next  work,  if  ever  I  live  to  write  another, 
may  please  you  better. 


308  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 


LVIII.     TO    WM.  SMITH,  ESQ.,  FORMERLY  M.P.  FOR   NORWICH. 

(In  answer  to  a  letter  on  the  subject  of  his  pamphlet,  particularly  objecting 
to  his  making  it  essential  to  those  included  in  his  scheme  of  comprehension, 
that  they  should  address  Christ  as  an  object  of  worship.) 

Rugby,  March  9, 1833. 

I  trust  you  will  not  ascribe  it  to  neglect  that  I  have  not 
returned  an  earlier  answer  to  your  letter.  My  time  has  been 
very  much  occupied,  and  I  did  not  wish  to  write,  till  I  could 
command  leisure  to  write  as  fully  as  the  purport  and  tone  of 
your  letter  required. 

I  cannot  be  mistaken,  I  think,  in  concluding  that  I  have 
the  honor  of  addressing  Mr.  Smith,  who  was  so  long  the 
Member  for  Norwich,  and  whose  name  must  be  perfectly 
familiar  to  any  one  who  has  been  accustomed  to  follow  the 
proceedings  of  Parliament 

The  passage  in  my  pamphlet  to  which  you  allude  is  ex- 
pressly limited  to  the  case  of  "  the  Unitarians  preserving 
exactly  their  present  character;"  that  is,  as  appears  by  a 
comparison  with  what  follows,  (p.  36,)  their  including  many 
who  "  call  themselves  Unitarians,  because  the  name  of  unbe- 
liever is  not  yet  thought  creditable."  And  these  persons  are 
expressly  distinguished  from  those  other  Unitarians  whom  I 
speak  of  "  as  really  Christians."  In  giving  or  withholding  the 
title  of  Christian,  I  was  much  more  influenced  by  the  spirit 
and  temper  of  the  parties  alluded  to  than  by  their  doctrinal 
opinions.  For  instance,  my  dislike  to  the  works  of  the  late 
Mr.  Belsham  arises  more  from  what  appears  to  me  their 
totally  unchristian  tone,  meaning  particularly  their  want  of 
that  devotion,  reverence,  love  of  holiness,  and  dread  of  sin, 
which  breathes  through  the  Apostolical  writings,  than  from 
the  mere  opinions  contained  in  them,  utterly  erroneous  as  I 
believe  them  to  be.  And  this  was  my  reason  for  laying 
particular  stress  on  the  worship  of  Christ ;  because  it  appears 
to  me  that  the  feelings  with  which  we  regard  Him  are  of 
much  greater  importance,  than  such  metaphysical  questions 
as  those  between  Homoousians  and  Homoiousians,  or  even 
than  the  question  of  His  humanity  or  proper  divinity. 

My  great  objection  to  Unitarianism  in  its  present  form  in 
England,  where  it  is  professed  sincerely,  is  that  it  makes 
Christ  virtually  dead.  Our  relation  to  Him  is  past  instead  of 
present ;  and  the  result  is  notorious,  that  instead  of  doing 
everything  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  the  language  of 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  309 

Unitarians  loses  this  peculiarly  Christian  character,  and  assim- 
ilates to  that  of  mere  Deists ;  "  Providence,"  the  "  Supreme 
Being,"  and  other  such  expressions  taking  the  place  of  "  God, 
the  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  "  the  Lord,"  &c.,  which 
other  Christians,  like  the  Apostles,  have  found  at  once  most 
natural  to  them,  and  most  delightful.  For  my  own  part,  con- 
sidering one  great  object  of  God's  revealing  himself  in  the 
Person  of  Christ  to  be  the  furnishing  us  with  an  object  of 
worship  which  we  could  at  once  love  and  understand ;  or,  in 
other  words,  the  supplying  safely  and  wholesomely  that  want 
in  human  nature,  which  has  shown  itself  in  false  religions,  in 
'.'  making  gods  after  our  own  devices,"  it  does  seem  to  me  to 
be  forfeiting  the  peculiar  benefits  thus  offered,  if  we  persist  in 
attempting  to  approach  to  God  in  His  own  incomprehensible 
essence,  which  as  no  man  hath  seen  or  can  see,  so  no  man 
can  conceive  it.  And,  while  I  am  most  ready  to  allow  the 
provoking  and  most  ill-judged  language  in  which  the  truth,  as 
I  hold  it  to  be,  respecting  God  has  been  expressed  by  Trin- 
itarians, so,  on  the  other  hand,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
Unitarians  have  deceived  themselves  by  fancying  that  they 
could  understand  the  notion  of  one  God  any  better  than  that 
of  God  in  Christ :  whereas,  it  seems  to  me,  that  it  is  only  of 
God  in  Christ  that  I  can  in  my  present  state  of  being  conceive 
anything  at  all.  To  know  God  the  Father,  that  is,  God  as 
He  is  in  Himself,  in  His  to  us  incomprehensible  essence, 
seems  the  great  and  most  blessed  promise  reserved  for  us 
when  this  mortal  shall  have  put  on  immortality. 

You  will  forgive  me  for  writing  in  this  language ;  but  I 
could  not  otherwise  well  express  what  it  was,  which  I  con- 
sider such  a  departure  from  the  spirit  of  Christianity  in 
modern  Unitarianism.  Will  you  forgive  me  also  for  express- 
ing my  belief  and  fervent  hope,  that  if  we  could  get  rid  of 
the  Athanasian  Creed,  and  of  some  other  instances  of  what 
I  would  call  the  technical  language  of  Trinitarianism,  many 
good  Unitarians  would  have  a  stumbling-block  removed  out 
of  their  path,  and  would  join  their  fellow-Christians  in  bowing 
the  knee  to  Him  who  is  Lord  both  of  the  dead  and  the  living. 
But  whatever  they  may  think  of  His  nature,  I  never  meant 
to  deny  the  name  of  Christian  to  those  who  truly  love  and 
fear  Him  ;  and  though  I  think  it  is  the  tendency  of  Unitarian- 
ism  to  lessen  this  love  and  fear,  yet  I  doubt  not  that  many 
Unitarians  feel  it,  notwithstanding,  and  then  He  is  their  Sav- 
iour, and  they  are  His  people. 


310  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

LIX.      TO    THE   CHEVALIER   BTTNSEN. 

Rugby,  Mny  6,  1833. 

T  thank  you  most  heartily  for  two  most  delightful  letters. 
They  both  make  me  feel  more  ardently  the  wish  that  I  could 
see  you  once  again,  and  talk  over  instead  of  write  the  many 
important  subjects  which  interest  us  both,  and  not  us  only, 
but  all  the  world 

First,  as  to  our  politics.  I  detest  as  cordially  as  you  can 
do  the  party  of  the  "  Movement,"  both  in  France  and  Eng- 
land. I  detest  Jacobinism  in  its  root  and  in  its  branches, 
with  all  that  godless  Utilitarianism  which  is  its  favorite  aspect 
at  this  moment  in  England.  Nothing  within  my  knowledge 

is  more  utterly  wicked  than  the  party  of men,  who, 

fairly  and  literally,  as  I  fear,  blaspheme  not  the  Son  of  Man, 
but  the  Spirit  of  God ;  they  hate  Christ,  because  He  is  of 
heaven  and  they  are  of  evil. 

For  the  more  vulgar  form  of  our  popular  party,  the  total 
ignorance  of,  and  indifference  to,  all  principle ;  the  mere 
money-getting  and  money-saving  selfishness  which  cries  aloud 
for  cheap  government,  making,  as  it  were,  a\rri»  T  ayaQbv  to 
consist  in  cheapness — my  feeling  is  one  of  extreme  contempt 
and  disgust.  My  only  difference  from  you,  so  far  as  I  see, 
regards  our  anti-reformers,  or  rather  the  Tory  party  in  gen- 
eral in  England.  Now,  undoubtedly,  some  of  the  very  best 
and  wisest  men  in  the  country  have  on  the  Reform  question 
joined  this  party,  but  they  ar»  as  Falkland  was  at  Oxford  — 
had  their  party  triumphed,  they  would  have  been  the  first  to 
lament  the  victory  ;  for,  not  they  would  have  influenced  the 
measures  carried  into  effect  —  but  the  worst  and  most  selfish 
part  of  our  aristocracy,  with  the  coarsest  and  most  profligate 
of  their  dependents,  men  like  the  Hortensii,  and  Lentuli,  and 
Claudii  of  the  Roman  civil  wars,  who  thwarted  Pompey, 
insulted  Cicero,  and  ground  down  the  provinces  with  their 
insolence  and  tyranny ;  men  so  hateful  and  so  contemptible, 
that  I  verily  believe  that  the  victory  of  Caesar,  nay  even  of 
Augustus,  was  a  less  evil  to  the  human  race  than  would  have 
resulted  from  the  triumph  of  the  aristocracy. 

And,  as  I  feel  that,  of  the  two  besetting  sins  of  human 
nature,  selfish  neglect  and  selfish  agitation,  the  former  is  the 
more  common,  and  has  in  the  long  run  done  far  more  harm 
than  the  latter,  although  the  outbreaks  of  the  latter,  while 
they  last,  are  of  a  far  more  atrocious  character ;  so  I  have  in 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  311 

a  manner  vowed  to  myself,  and  prayed  that  with  God's 
blessing,  no  excesses  of  popular  wickedness,  though  I  should 
be  myself,  as  I  expect,  the  victim  of  them,  no  temporary  evils 
produced  by  revolution,  shall  ever  make  me  forget  the  wicked- 
ness of  Toryism, — of  that  spirit  which  crucified  Christ  Himself, 
which  has  throughout  the  long  experience  of  all  history  con- 
tinually thwarted  the  cause  of  God  and  goodness,  and  has 
gone  on  abusing  its  opportunities,  and  heaping  up  wrath  by  a 
long  series  of  selfish  neglect  against  the  day  of  wrath  and 
judgment. 

Again,  I  feel  that  while  I  agree  with  you  wholly  and  most 
heartily  in  my  abhorrence  of  the  spirit  of  1789,  of  the  Amer- 
ican war,  of  the  French  Economi.-tes,  and  of  the  English 
Whigs  of  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  century  and  be- 
ginning of  the  eighteenth,  yet  I  have  always  been  unable  to 
sympathize  with  what  you  call  "  the  historical  liberty  "  which 
grew  out  of  the  system  of  the  middle  ages.  For,  not  to  speak 
of  the  unhappy  extinction  of  that  liberty  in  many  countries  of 
Europe,  even  in  England  it  showed  itself  to  have  been  more 
the  child  of  accident  than  of  principle ;  and  throughout  the 
momentous  period  of  the  eighteenth  century,  this  character  of 
it  was  fatally  developed.  For,  not  ascending  to  general  prin- 
ciples, it  foresaw  not  the  evil,  till  it  became  too  mature  to  be 
remedied,  and  the  state  of  the  poor  and  that  of  the  Church 
are  melancholy  proofs  of  the  folly  of  what  is  called  "  letting 
well  alone ; "  which,  not  watching  for  symptoms,  nor  endeav- 
oring to  meet  the  coming  danger,  allows  the  fuel  of  disease 
to  accumulate  in  the  unhealthy  body,  till,  at  last,  the  sickness 
strikes  it  with  the  suddenness  and  malignity  of  an  incurable 
pestilence.  But,  when  the  cup  is  nearly  full,  and  revolutions 
are  abroad,  it  is  a  sign  infallible  that  the  old  state  of  things 
is  ready  to  vanish  away.  Its  race  is  run,  and  no  human 
power  can  preserve  it.  But,  by  attempting  to  preserve  it, 
you  derange  the  process  of  the  new  birth  which  must  succeed 
it ;  and  whilst  the  old  perishes  in  spite  of  your  efforts,  you 
get  a  monstrous  and  misshapen  creature  in  its  place ;  when, 
had  the  birth  been "  quietly  effected,  its  proportions  might 
have  been  better,  and  its  imvard  constitution  sounder  and 
less  irritable. 

What  our  birth  in  England  is  likely  to  end  in,  is  indeed  a 
hard  question.  I  believe  that  our  only  chance  is  in  the  sta- 
bility of  the  present  ministers.  I  am  well  aware  of  their 
faults ;  but  still  they  keep  out  the  Tories  and  the  Radicals, 


312  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

the  Red  Jacobins  of  1794,  and  the  White  Jacobins  of  1795, 
or  of  Naples  in  1799,  —  alike  detestable.  I  do  not  think  that 
you  can  fully  judge  of  what  the  ascendency  of  the  Tories  is ; 
it  is  not  the  Duke  of  Wellington  or  Sir  R.  Peel  who  would 
do  harm,  but  the  base  party  that  they  would  bring  in  in  their 

train, and  all  the  tribe  of  selfish  and  ignorant  lords 

and  country  squires  and  clergymen,  who  would  irritate  the 
feeling  of  the  people  to  madness. 

If  you  see  my  pamphlet  and  Postscript,  you  will 

see  that  I  have  kept  clear  of  the  mere  secular  questions  of 
tithes  and  pluralities,  and  have  argued  for  a  comprehension 
on  higher  grounds.  I  dislike  Articles  because  they  represent 
truth  untruly,  that  is,  in  an  unedifying  manner,  and  thus 
robbed  of  its  living  truth,  whilst  it  retains  its  mere  literal 
form ;  whereas  the  same  truth,  embodied  in  prayers,  or  con- 
fessions, or  even  in  catechisms,  becomes  more  Christian,  just 
in  proportion  as  it  is  less  theological.  But  I  fear  that  our 
reforms,  instead  of  laboring  to  unite  the  Dissenters  with  the 
Church,  will  confirm  their  separate  existence  by  relieving 
them  from  all  which  they  now  complain  of  as  a  burden.  And 
continuing  distinct  from  the  Church,  will  they  not  labor  to 
effect  its  overthrow,  till  they  bring  us  quite  to  the  American 
platform  ? 

LX.       TO    THE    ARCHBISHOP    OF    DUBLIN. 

Rugby,  May  21,  1833. 

It  is  painful  to  think  that  these  exaggerations,  in ' 

too  many  instances,  cannot  be  innocent ;  in  Oxford  there  is 
an  absolute  (pyaarfjptov  ^ev8a)i>,  whose  activity  is  surprising. 

I  do  hope  that  we  shall  see  you  all  next  month. 

When  I  am  not  so  strong  as  usual,  I  feel  the  vexation  of  the 

school  more  than  I  could  wish  to  do And  I  have 

also  been  annoyed  at  the  feeling  excited  in  some  of  my  old 
friends  by  my  pamphlet,  and  by  the  constant  and  persevering 
falsehoods  which  are  circulated  concerning  my  opinions  and 

my   practice Thucydides   creeps   on   slowly,   and 

nothing  else,  save  my  school  work,  gets  on  at  all.  I  do 
confess,  that  I  feel  now  more  anxious  than  I  used  to  do  to 
get  time  to  write,  and  especially  to  write  history.  But  this 
will  not  be. 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  313 


LXI.       TO    REV.    J.   HEARN. 

Rugby,  May  29, 1833. 

I  do  not  know  whether  you  have  ever  felt  the 

intense  difficulty  of  expressing  in  any  other  language  the  im- 
pression, which  the  Scripture  statement  of  any  great  doctrine 
has  left  on  your  own  mind.*  It  has  grieved  me  much  to  find 
that  some  of  my  own  friends,  whilst  they  acquit  me  of  any 
such  intention,  consider  the  tendency  of  my  Church  Reform 
plan  as  latitudinarian  in  point  of  doctrine.  Now  my  belief  is, 
that  it  would  have  precisely  the  contrary  effect,  and  would 
tend  ultimately  to  a  much  greater  unity  and  strictness  in  true 
doctrine ;  that  is  to  say,  in  those  views  of  God's  dealings  and 
dispositions  towards  us,  and  of  our  consequent  duties  towards 
Him,  which  constitute,  I  imagine,  the  essence  of  the  Gospel 
Revelation.  Now,  what  I  want  is,  to  abstract  from  what  is 
commonly  called  doctrine  everything  which  is  not  of  this 
kind;  and  secondly,  for  what  is  of  this  kind,  to  present  it 
only  so  far  forth  as  it  is  so,  dropping  all  deductions  which  we 
conceive  may  be  drawn  from  it,  regarded  as  a  naked  truth, 
but  which  cannot  be  drawn  from  it,  when  regarded  as  a 
divine  practical  lesson. 

For  instance,  it  is  common  to  derive  from  our  Lord's  words 
to  Nicodemus,  "  Except  a  man  be  born  of  water,"  &c.,  an 
universal  proposition,  "  No  being  can  be  saved  ordinarily  with- 
out baptism ; "  and  then  to  prove  the  fitness  of  baptizing  in- 
fants, for  this  reason,  as  necessary,  out  of  charity  to  them ; 
whereas  our  Lord's  words  are  surely  only  for  those  who  can 
understand  them.  Take  any  person  with  the  use  of  his  facul- 

*  He  often  expressed  this  feeling  with  regard  to  the  truths  of  Revelation. 
"  They  are  placed  before  us  in  Scripture,"  he  said,  "  as  very  vivid  images 
are  sometimes  presented  to  us  in  dreams.  It  is  like  that  point  in  Mousehold 
Heath,"  (in  the  neighborhood  of  Norwich,  where  he  had  just  been,)  "  where, 
when  we  stood  in  one  particular  spot,  all  human  habitations  were  shut  out 
from  our  view,  —  but  by  a  single  step  we  came  again  within  sight  of  them, 
and  lost  the  image  of  perfect  solitude.  So  it  is  in  the  scriptural  statements 
of  the  Atonement,  —  as  long  as  we  can  place  ourselves  exactly  hi  their  point 
of  view,  and  catch  it  as  it  is  presented  to  us  in  this  dreamlike  fashion,  none 
of  the  false  views  which  so  often  beset  it  can  come- across  us:  the  highest 
act  of  love  is  the  sacrifice  of  self,  —  the  highest  act  of  God's  infinite  love  to 
man  was  in  the  Redemption,  —  but  from  the  ineffable  mysterv  which  hangs 
over  the  Godhead,  God  could  not  be  said  to  sacrifice  Himself;  —  and  there- 
fore He  sacrificed  His  only  Son,  —  that  object  which  was  so  near  and  so 
dear  to  Hun,  that  nothing  could  be  nearer  and  dearer."  —  Compare  Serm. 
on  Rom.  v.  7,  in  vol.  vi.  So  again  in  a  conversation  in  1842,  with  regard  to 
<he  controversy  on  justification. 

VOL.  I.  27 


314  LIFE   OF  DB.   ARNOLD. 

ties,  and  therefore  the  consciousness  of  sin  in  his  own  heart, 
and  say  to  him,  that  "  Except  he  be  born  again,"  &c.  and  then 
you  apply  Christ's  word  in  its  true  meaning,  to  arouse  men's 
consciences,  and  make  them  see  that  their  evil  and  corrupt 
nature  can  of  itself  end  only  in  evil.  But  when  we  apply  it 
universally  as  an  abstract  truth,  and  form  conclusions  from  it, 
those  conclusions  are  frequently  either  uncharitable  or  super- 
stitious, or  both.  It  was  uncharitable  when  men  argued, 
though  correctly  enough  as  to  logic,  that,  if  no  man  could  be 
saved  without  baptism,  all  the  heathen  must  have  perished ; 
and  it  was  uncharitable  and  superstitious  too,  to  argue,  as 
Cranmer,  that  unbaptized  infants  must  perish ;  but  that,  if 
baptized,  they  were  instantly  safe.  Now,  I  hold  it  to  be  a 
most  certain  rule  of  interpreting  Scripture,  that  it  never 
speaks  of  persons,  when  there  is  a  physical  impossibility  of  its 
speaking  to  them ;  but  as  soon  as  the  mind  opens  and  under- 
stands the  word,  then  the  word  belongs  to  it,  and  then  the 
truth  is  his  in  all  its  fulness ;  that  "  Except  he  be  born  again, 
he  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God."  So  the  heathen  who 
died  before  the  word  was  spoken,  and  in  whose  land  it  has 
never  been  preached,  are  dead  to  the  word,  —  it  concerns  not 
them  at  all ;  but  the  moment  it  can  reach  them,  then  it  is 
theirs  and  for  them  ;  and  we  are  bound  to  spread  it,  not  from 
general  considerations  of  their  fate  without  it,  but  because 
Christ  has  commanded  us  to  spread  it,  and  because  we  see 
that  Christianity  has  the  promise  of  both  worlds,  raising 
men's  nature,  and  fitting  them  for  communion  with  God  here- 
after, —  revealing  Him  in  His  Son.  Now,  apply  this  rule  to 
all  the  Scriptures,  and  ask  at  every  passage,  not  "What 
follows  from  this  as  a  general  truth  ?  "  —  but  "  What  is  the 
exact  lesson  or  impression  which  it  was  intended  to  convey  ? 
—  what  faults  was  it  designed  to  correct  ?  —  what  good  feel- 
ings to  encourage  ?  "  Our  Lord  says,  "  God  is  a  Spirit : "  now 
if  we  make  conclusions  from  this  metaphysically,  we  may,  for 
aught  I  know,  run  into  all  kinds  of  extravagance  because  we 
neither  know  what  God  is,  nor  what  Spirit  is  ;  but  if  we  take 
our  Lord's  conclusion,  "  Therefore  we  should  worship  Him  in 
spirit  and  in  truth ; "  i.  e.  not  with  outward  forms,  and  still 
less  with  evil  passions  and  practices,  —  then  it  is  full  of  truth, 
and  wisdom,  and  goodness.  I  have  filled  my  paper,  and  yet 
perhaps  have  not  fully  developed  my  meaning  ;  but  you  will 
connect  it  perhaps  with  my  dislike  of  Articles,  because  there 
truth  is  always  expressed  abstractedly  and  theoretically,  and 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  315 

my  preference  of  a  Liturgy  as  a  bond  of  union,  because  there 
it  assumes  a  practical  shape,  as  it  is  meant  in  Scripture  to  be 
taken. 

LXII.       TO    HIS    SISTER,    THE    COUNTESS    OF    CAVAN. 
\La  answer  to  a  question  on  Dr.  Whately's  "  Thoughts  on  the  Sabbath.") 

Rugby,  June  11, 1833. 

My  own  notions  about  the  matter  would  take  up 

rather  too  much  room,  I  fear,  to  come  in  at  the  end  of  my 
paper.  But  my  conclusion  is,  that  whilst  St.  Paul,  on  the  one 
hand,  would  have  been  utterly  shocked,  could  he  have  fore- 
seen that  eighteen  hundred  years  after  Christianity  had  been 
in  the  world,  such  an  institution  as  the  Sabbath  would  have 
been  still  needed  ;  yet,  seeing  that  it  is  still  needed,  the  obli- 
gation of  the  old  commandment  is  still  binding  in  the  spirit 
of  it :  that  is,  that  we  should  use  one  day  in  seven,  as  a  sort 
of  especial  reminder  of  our  duties,  and  a  relieving  ourselves 
from  the  over-pressure  of  worldly  things,  which  daily  life 
brings  with  it.  But  our  Sunday  is  the  beginning  of  the  week, 
not  the  end  —  a  day  of  preparation  and  strengthening  for  the 
week  to  come,  and  not  of  rest  for  the  past ;  and  in  this  sense 
the  old  Christians  kept  it,  because  it  was  the  day  on  which 
God  began  his  work  of  creation  ;  so  little  did  they  think  that 
they  had  anything  to  do  with  the  old  Jewish  Sabbath.  You 
will  see,  also,  by  our  common  Catechism,  that  "  the  duty 
towards  God,"  which  is  expressly  given  as  a  summary  of  the 
four  first  commandments  to  us,  as  Christians,  says  not  one 
word  about  the  Sabbath,  but  simply  about  loving  God, 
worshipping  him,  and  serving  him  truly  all  the  days  of  our 
life.  It  is  not  that  we  may  pick  and  choose  what  command- 
ments we  like  to  obey,  but  as  all  the  commandments  have  no 
force  upon  us  as  such,  —  that  is,  as  positive  and  literal  com- 
mands addressed  to  ourselves,  —  it  is  only  a  question  how  far 
each  commandment  is  applicable  to  us,  —  that  is,  how  far  we 
are  in  the  same  circumstances  with  those  to  whom  it  was 
given.  Now,  in  respect  to  the  great  moral  commands  of 
worshipping  and  honoring  God,  honoring  parents,  abstain- 
ing from  murder,  &c.,  —  as  these  are  equally  applicable  to  all 
times  and  all  states  of  society,  they  are  equally  binding  upon 
all  men,  not  as  having  been  some  of  the  commandments  given 
to  the  Jews,  but  as  being  part  of  God's  eternal  and  universal 
law,  for  all  his  reasonable  creatures  to  obey.  And  here,  no 


316  LIFE   OF  DB.  ARNOLD. 

doubt,  there  is  a  serious  responsibility  for  every  one  to  deter- 
mine how  far  what  he  reads  in  the  Bible  concerns  himself; 
and  no  doubt,  also,  that  if  a  man  chooses  to  cheat  his  con- 
science in  such  a  matter,  he  might  do  it  easily ;  but  the  re- 
sponsibility is  one  which  we  cannot  get  rid  of,  because  we  see 
that  parts  of  the  Bible  are  not  addressed  directly  to  us ;  and 
thus  we  must  decide  what  is  addressed  to  us  and  what  is  not ; 
and  if  we  decide  dishonestly,  for  the  sake  of  indulging  any 
evil  inclination,  we  do  but  double  our  guilt.* 

I. XIII.       TO    MR.    SERJEANT    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  June  12,  1833. 

Our   Westmoreland    house   is   rising  from   its 

foundations,  and,  I  hope,  rearing  itself  tolerably  "in  auras 
aethereas."  It  looks  right  into  the  bosom  of  Fairfield,  —  a 
noble  mountain,  which  sends  down  two  long  arms  into  the 
valley,  and  keeps  the  clouds  reposing  between  them,  while  he 
looks  down  on  them  composedly  with  his  quiet  brow  ;  and  the 
Rotha,  "purior  electro,"  winds  round  our  fields,  just  under 
the  house.  Behind,  we  run  up  to  the  top  of  Loughrigg,  and 
we  have  a  mountain  pasture,  in  a  basin  on  the  summit  of  the 
ridge,  the  very  image  of  those  "  Saltus  "  on  Cithaeron,  where 
CEdipus  was  found  by  the  Corinthian  shepherd.  The  "Words- 
worths'  friendship,  for  so  I  may  call  it,  is  certainly  one  of  the 
greatest  delights  of  Fox  How,  —  the  name  of  my  xeopiov,  —  and 
their  kindness  in  arranging  everything  in  our  absence  has 

*  The  principle  here  laid  down,  is  given  more  at  length  in  the  Essay  on 
the  Right  Interpretation  of  Scripture,  at  the  end  of  the  second  volume  of 
his  Sermons;  and  also  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Lord's  Day,  in  the  third  volume. 
It  may  be  well  to  insert  in  this  place  a  letter  to  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge,  in 
1830,  relating  to  a  libel  in  a  newspaper,  charging  him  with  violation  of  the 
observance  of  Sunday. 

"  Surely  I  can  deny  the  charge  stoutly  and  in  toto ;  for,  although  I  think 
that  the  whole  law  is  done  away  with,  so  far  as  it  is  the  law  given  on  Mount 
Sinai;  yet  so  far  as  it  is  the  Law  of  the  Spirit,  I  hold  it  to  DC  all  binding; 
nnd  believing  that  our  need  of  a  Lord's  day  is  as  great  as  ever  it  was,  and 
that  therefore  its  observance  is  God's  will,  and  is  likely,  so  far  as  we  see. 
to  be  so  to  the  end  of  time,  I  should  think  it  most  mischievous  to  weaken  the 
respect  paid  to  it.  I  believe  all  that  I  have  ever  published  about  it  is  to  be 
found  at  the  end  of  my  twentieth  Sermon  [of  the  first  volume] ;  and  as  for 
my  practice,  I  am  bus'y  every  Sunday  from  morning  till  evening,  in  lecturing 
the  boys,  or  preaching  to  them,  or  writing  sermons  for  them.  One  feels 
ashamed  to  mention  such  things,  but  the  fact  is,  that  I  have  doubled  my 
own  work  on  Sunday,  to  give  the  boys  more  religious  instruction;  and  that 
I  can,  I  hope,  deny  the  charge  of  the  libel  in  as  strong  terms  as  you  would 
wish." 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  317 

been  very  great.  Meantime,  till  our  own  house  is  ready, 
which  cannot  be  till  next  summer,  we  have  taken  a  furnished 
house  at  the  head  of  Grasmere,  on  a  little  shoulder  of  the 
mountain  of  Silver  How,  between  the  lake  on  one  side,  and 
JEasedale,  the  most  delicious  of  vales,  on  the  other. 

LXIV.       TO    A    PUPIL. 

(Who  had  -written,  with  much  anxiety,  to  know  whether  he  had  offended 
him,  as  he  had  thought  his  manner  changed  towards  him.) 

Grasmere,  July  15,  1833. 

The  other  part  of  your  letter  at  once  gratified  and 

pained  me.  I  was  not  aware  of  anything  hi  my  manner  to 
you  that  could  imply  disapprobation ;  and  certainly  it  was 
not  intended  to  do  so.  Yet  it  is  true  that  I  had  observed, 
with  some  pain,  what  seemed  to  me  indications  of  a  want  of 
enthusiasm,  in  the  good  sense  of  the  word,  of  a  moral  sense 
and  feeling  corresponding  to  what  I  knew  was  your  intellectual 
activity,  I  did  not  observe  anything  amounting  to  a  sneering 
spirit ;  but  there  seemed  to  me  a  coldness  on  religious  matters, 
which  made  me  fear  lest  it  should  change  to  sneering,  as  your 
understanding  became  more  vigorous :  for  this  is  the  natural 
fault  of  the  undue  predominance  of  the  mere  intellect,  un- 
accompanied by  a  corresponding  growth  and  liveliness  of  the 
moral  affections,  particularly  that  of  admiration  and  love  of 
moral  excellence,  just  as  superstition  arises,  where  it  is 
honest,  from  the  undue  predominance  of  the  affections,  with- 
out the  strengthening  power  of  the  intellect  advancing  in 
proportion.  This  was  the  whole  amount  of  my  feeling  with 
respect  to  you,  and  which  has  nothing  to  do  with  your  con- 
duct in  school  matters.  I  should  have  taken  an  opportunity 
of  speaking  to  you  about  the  state  of  your  mind,  had  you  not 
led  me  now  to  mention  it.  Possibly  my  impression  may  be 
wrong,  and  indeed  it  has  been  created  by  very  trifling  circum- 
stances; but  I  am  always  keenly  alive  on  this  point  to  the 
slightest  indications,  because  it  is  the  besetting  danger  of  an 
active  mind  —  a  much  more  serious  one,  I  think,  than  the 
temptation  to  mere  personal  vanity. 

I  must  again  say,  most  expressly,  that  I  observed  nothing 
more,  than  an  apparent  want  of  lively  moral  susceptibility. 
Your  answers  on  religious  subjects  were  always  serious  and 
sensible,  and  seemed  to  me  quite  sincere :  I  only  feared  that 
they  proceeded,  perhaps  too  exclusively,  from  an  intellectual 

27* 


:'.1S  LIFE  OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

perception  of  truth,  without  a  sufficient  love  and  admiration 
for  goodness.  I  hold  the  lines,  "  nil  admirari,"  &c.,  to  be  as 
utterly  false  as  any  moral  sentiment  ever  uttered.  Intense 
admiration  is  necessary  to  our  highest  perfection,  and  we  have 
an  object  in  the  Gospel,  for  which  it  may  be  felt  to  the  utmost, 
without  any  fear  lest  the  most  critical  intellect  should  tax  us 
justly  with  unworthy  idolatry.  But  I  am  as  little  inclined  as 
any  one  to  make  an  idol  out  of  any  human  virtue,  or  human 
wisdom. 

LXV.      TO   W.   W.   HULL,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  June  24, 1833. 

An  ordinary  letter,  written  to  me  when  yours  was,  would 
have  been  answered  some  time  since,  but  I  do  not  like  to 
write  to  you  when  I  have  no  leisure  to  write  at  length.  Most 
truly  do  I  thank  you  for  your  affectionate  recollection  of 
my  birthday,  and  for  coupling  it  in  your  mind  with  the  4th  of 
April.*  May  my  second  birthday  be  as  blessed  to  me,  as  the 

20th  of  August,  I  doubt  not,  has  been  to  her All 

writings  which  state  the  truth,  must  contain  things  which, 
taken  nakedly  and  without  their  balancing  truths,  may  serve 
the  purposes  of  either  party,  because  no  party  is  altogether 
wrong.  But  I  have  no  reason  to  think  that  my  Church 
Reform  pamphlet  has  served  the  purposes  of  the  antichristian 
party  in  any  way,  it  being  hardly  possible  to  extract  a  passage 
which  they  would  like.  The  High-Church  party  are  offended 
enough,  and  so  are  the  Unitarians,  but  I  do  not  see  that 

either  make  a  cat's  paw  of  me The  Bishop  confirms 

here  on  Saturday,  and  I  have  had  and  have  still  a  great  deal 
to  do  in  examining  the  boys  for  it.  Indeed,  the  work  is  full 
heavy  just  now,  but  the  fry  are  learning  cricket,  and  we  play 

nice  matches   sometimes  to  my  great   refreshment 

God  bless  you  and  yours. 

LXVI.   TO    REV.    AUGUSTUS    HARE. 
(In  answer  to  objections  to  his  pamphlet.) 

Grasmere,  August  3,  1833. 

And  now  I  feel  that  to  reply  to  your  letter  as  I 

could  wish,  would  require  a  volume.     You  will  say  why  was 

*  Alluding  to  a  sister's  birthday  and  death. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  319 

not  the  volume  published  before,  or  with  the  pamphlet  ?  To 
which  I  answer  that,  first,  it  would  probably  not  have  been 
read,  and  secondly,  I  was  not  prepared  to  find  men  so  startled 
at  principles,  which  have  long  appeared  to  me  to  follow  neces- 
sarily from  a  careful  study  of  the  New  Testament.  Be 
assured,  however,  that,  whether  mistakenly  or  not,  I  fully 
believe  that  such  a  plan  as  I  have  proposed,  taken  altogether, 
would  lead  to  a  more  complete  representation  of  Scripture 
truth  in  our  forms  of  worship  and  preaching  than  we  have 
ever  yet  attained  to ;  not,  certainly,  if  we  were  only  to  cut 
away  articles,  and  alter  the  Liturgy  —  then  the  effect  might 
be  latitudinarian  —  but  if,  whilst  relaxing  the  theoretical  bond, 
we  were  to  tighten  the  practical  one  by  amending  the  govern- 
ment and  constitution  of  the  Church,  then  I  do  believe  that 
the  fruit  would  be  Christian  union,  by  which  I  certainly  do 
not  mean  an  agreement  in  believing  nothing,  or  as  little  as 
we  can.  Meantime,  I  wish  to  remind  you  that  one  of  St. 
Paul's  favorite  notions  of  heresy  is,  "  a  doting  about  strifes  of 
words."  One  side  may  be  right  in  such  a  strife,  and  the 
other  wrong,  but  both  are  heretical  as  to  Christianity,  because 
they  lead  men's  minds  away  from  the  love  of  God  and  of 
Christ,  to  questions  essentially  tempting  to  the  intellect,  and 
which  tend  to  no  profit  towards  godliness.  And  again,  I 
think*  you  will  find  that  all  the  "  false  doctrines  "  spoken  of 
by  the  Apostles,  are  doctrines  of  sheer  wickedness ;  that  their 
counterpart  in  modern  tunes  is  to  be  found  in  the  Anabaptists 
of  Munster,  or  the  Fifth  Monarchy  Men,  or  in  mere  secular 
High  Churchmen,  or  hypocritical  Evangelicals,  —  in  those  who 
make  Christianity  minister  to  lust,  or  to  covetousness,  or  to 
ambition  ;  not  hi  those  who  interpret  Scripture  to  the  best  of 
their  conscience  and  ability,  be  their  interpretation  ever  so 
erroneous. 

*  This  is  illustrated  by  his  language  in  conversation  on  another  subject. 
"  Excommunication  ought  to  be  the  expression  of  the  public  opinion  of 
Christian  society ;  and  the  line  of  offences  to  be  censured  seems  to  me  very- 
much  marked  out  by  the  distinction  between  sins  against  the  Son  of 
Man,  and  sins  against  the  Holy  Ghost.  Obscene  publications  are  of  the 
latter  character,  and  are  actually  under  the  ban  of  Christian  public  opinion ; 
and  in  proportion  as  the  Church  became  more  perfect,  errors  of  opinion  and 
unbelief,  which  are  now  only  sins  against  the  Son  of  Man,  would  then  be- 
come sins  against  the  Holy  Ghost,  because  then  the  outward  profession  of 
Christianity  would  have  become  identical  with  moral  goodness." 


320  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 


TO   REV.   G.    CORNISH. 

Allan  Bank,  Grasmere,  August  18,  1833. 

.....  I  have  had  a  good  deal  of  worry  from  .....  the 

party  spirit  of  the  neighborhood,  who  in  the  first  place  have 
no  notion  of  what  my  opinions  are,  and  in  the  next  place  can- 
not believe  that  I  do  not  teach  the  boys  Junius  and  the  Edin- 
burgh Review,  at  the  least,  if  not  Cobbett  and  the  Examiner. 
But  this  is  an  evil  which  flesh  is  heir  to,  if  flesh,  at  least,  will 
write  as  I  have  done.     I  am  sorry  that  you  do  not  like  the 
pamphlet,  for  I  am  myself  daily  more  and  more  convinced  of 
its  truth.     I  will  not  answer  for  its  practicability  ;  when  the 
patient  is  at  his  last  gasp,  the  dose  may  come  too  late,  but  still 
it  is  his  only  chance  ;  he  may  die  of  the  doctor  ;  he  must  die 
of  the  disease.     I  fear  that  nothing  can  save  us  from  falling 
into  the  American  system,  which  will  well  show  us  the  in- 
herent evil  of  our  Protestantism,  each  man  quarrelling  with  his 
neighbor  for  a  word,  and  all  discarding  so  much  of  the  beauty 
and  solemnity,  and  visible  power  of  the  Gospel,  that  in  com- 
imon  minds,  where  its  spiritual  power  is  not  very  great,  the  re- 
sult is  like  the  savorless  salt,  the  vilest  thing  hi  the  world.     I 
would  join  with  all  those  who  love  Christ  and  pray  to  Him  ;  who 
regard  Him  not  as  dead,  but  as  living.    [This  part  of  the  letter 
has  been  accidentally  torn  away  ;  the  substance  of  it  seems  to 
have  been  the  same  as  that  of  Letters  LVIII.  and  LXVL] 
.....  Make  the  [Church  a]  living  and  active  society,  like 

that  of  the  first  Christians,  [and  then]  differences  of  opinion 
will  either  cease  or  will  signify  nothing.     [Look]  through  the 
Epistles,  and  you   will   find   nothing   there   condemned   as 
[heresy]  but  what  was  mere  wickedness  ;  if  you  consider  the 
real  nature  and  connection  of  the  tenets  condemned.     For 
such  differences  of  opinion  as  exist  amongst  Christians  now, 
the  14th  chapter  of  the  Romans  is  the  applicable  lesson  —  not 
such  passages  as  Titus  iii.  10,  or  2  John  10,  11,  or  Jude  3, 
(that  much-abused  verse!)  or  19  or  23.     There  is  one  anath- 
ema, which  is  indeed  holy  and  just,  and  most  profitable  for 
ourselves  as  well  as  for  others,  (1  Corinth,  xvi.  22,)  but  this 
is  not  the.  anathema  of  a  fond  theology  ......  Lo  !  I  have 

written  you  almost  another  pamphlet,  instead  of  telling  you  of 
my  wife  and  the  fry,  who  for  more  than  five  weeks  have  been 
revelling  amongst  the  mountains.  But  as  far  as  scenery  goes, 
I  would  rather  have  heath  and  blue  hills  all  the  year,  than 
mountains  for  three  months,  and  Warwickshire  for  nine,  with 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  321 

no  hills,  either  blue  or  brown,  no  heath,  no  woods,  no  clear 
streams,  no  wide  plains  for  lights  and  shades  to  play  over,  nay, 
no  banks  for  flowers  to  grow  upon,  but  one  monotonous  undu- 
lation of  green  fields  and  hedges,  and  very  fat  cattle.  But 
we  have  each  our  own  work,  and  our  own  enjoyments,  and  I 
am  sure  that  I  have  more  than  I  can  ever  be  sufficiently 
thankful  for. 

LXVIII.      TO    REV.   JULIUS    HARE. 

Rugby,  October  7, 1833. 

In  Italy  you  met  Bunsen,  and  can  now  sympa- 
thize with  the  all  but  idolatry  with  which  I  regard  him.  So 
beautifully  good,  so  wise,  and  so  noble-minded !  I  do  not 
believe  that  any  man  can  have  a  deeper  interest  in  Rome  than 
I  have,  yet  I  envy  you  nothing  so  much  in  your  last  winter's 
stay  there,  as  your  continued  intercourse  with  Bunsen.  It  is 
since  I  saw  you  that  I  have  been  devouring  with  the  most 
intense  admiration  the  third  volume  of  Niebuhr.  The  clear- 
ness and  comprehensiveness  of  all  his  military  details  is  a 
new  feature  hi  that  wonderful  mind,  and  how  inimitably  beau- 
tiful is  that  brief  account  of  Terni.  You  will  not,  I  trust, 
misinterpret  me,  when  I  say  that  this  third  volume  set  me  at 
work  again  in  earnest,  on  the  Roman  History,  last  summer. 
As  to  any  man's  being  a  fit  continuator  of  Niebuhr,  that  is 
absurd ;  but  I  have  at  least  the  qualification  of  an  unbounded 
veneration  for  what  he  has  done,  and,  as  my  name  is  men- 
tioned in  his  book,  I  should  like  to  try  to  embody,  in  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  Roman  History,  the  thoughts  and  notions 
which  I  have  learnt  from  him.  Perhaps  I  may  trouble  you 
with  a  letter  on  this  subject,  asking,  as  I  have  often  done  be- 
fore, for  information.* 

LXIX.       TO    MR.    SERGEANT    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  October  23,  1833. 

I  love  your  letters  dearly,  and  thank  you  for  them  greatly ; 
your  last  was  a  great  treat,  though  I  may  seem  not  to  have 
shown  my  sense  of  it  by  answering  it  so  leisurely.  First  of 
all,  you  will  be  glad  to  hear  of  the  birth  of  my  eighth  living 
child,  a  little  girl,  to  whom  we  mean  to  give  an  unreasonable 
number  of  names,  Frances  Bunsen  Trevenen  Whately ;  the 

*  This  alludes  to  a  plan  he  at  first  entertained  of  beginning  his  own 
Roman  History  with  the  Punic  wars. 

u 


322  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

second  after  my  valued  friend,  the  Prussian  Minister  at  Rome, 
of  whom,  as  I  know  not  whether  I  shall  ever  see  him  again, 
I  wished  to  have  a  daily  present  recollection  in  the  person  of 
one  of  my  children.  I  wish  I  could  show  you  his  two  letters, 
one  to  me  on  the  political  state  of  Europe,  and  one  to  Dr.  Nott 
on  the  perfect  notion  of  a  Christian  Liturgy.  I  am  sure  that 
you  would  love  and  admire  with  me,  the  extraordinary  com- 
bination of  piety  and  wisdom  and  profound  knowledge  and 
large  experience  which  breathes  through  every  line  of  both. 

I  go  all  lengths  with  you  in  deprecating  any  in- 
crease of  political  excitement,  anything  that  shall  tend  to 
make  politics  enter  into  a  man's  daily  thoughts  and  daily 
practice.  When  I  first  projected  the  Englishman's  Register, 
I  wrote  to  my  nephew  my  sentiments  about  it  in  full ;  a  letter 
which  I  keep,  and  may  one  day  find  it  convenient  to  publish 
as  my  confession  of  faith ;  in  this  letter  I  protested  strongly 
against  making  the  Register  exclusively  political,  and  entered 
at  large  into  my  reasons  for  doing  so.  Undoubtedly  I  fear 
that  the  Government  lend  an  ear  too  readily  to  the  Utilitarians 
and  others  of  that  coarse  and  hard  stamp,  whose  influence  can 
be  nothing  but  evil.  In  church  matters  they  have  got 
Whately,  and  a  signal  blessing  it  is  that  they  have  him  and 
listen  to  him ;  a  man  so  good  and  so  great  that  no  folly  or 
wickedness  of  the  most  vile  of  factions  will  move  him  from 
his  own  purposes,  or  provoke  him  in  disgust  to  forsake  the 
defence  of  the  Temple 

I  cannot  say  how  I  am  annoyed,  both  on  public  and  private 
grounds,  by  these  extravagances,  [at  Oxford ;]  on  private 
grounds,  from  the  gross  breaches  of  charity  to  which  they  lead 
good  men ;  and  on  public,  because  if  these  things  do  produce 
any  effect  on  the  clergy,  the  evil  consequences  to  the  nation 
are  not  to  be  calculated ;  for  what  is  to  become  of  the  Church, 
if  the  clergy  begin  to  exhibit  an  aggravation  of  the  worst 
superstitions  of  the  Roman  Catholics,  only  stripped  of  that 
consistency,  which  stamps  even  the  errors  of  the  Romish 
system  with  something  of  a  character  of  greatness.  It  seems 
presumption  in  me  to  press  any  point  upon  your  consideration, 
seeing  in  how  many  things  I  have  learned  to  think  from  you. 
But  it  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  an  extreme  fondness  for 
our  "dear  mother  the  panther,"*  is  a  snare,  to  which  the 
noblest  minds  are  most  liable.  It  seems  to  me  that  all,  abso- 
lutely all,  of  our  religious  affections  and  veneration  should  go 

*  Dryden's  "  Hind  and  Panther." 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  323 

to  Christ  Himself,  and  that  Protestantism,  Catholicism,  and 
every  other  name,  which  expresses  Christianity  and  some 
differentia  or  proprium  besides,  is  so  far  an  evil,  and,  when 
made  an  object  of  attachment,  leads  to  superstition  and  error. 
Then,  descending  from  religious  grounds  to  human,  I  think 
that  one's  natural  and  patriotic  sympathies  can  hardly  be  too 
strong ;  but  historically,  the  Church  of  England  is  surely  of 
a  motley  complexion,  with  much  of  good  about  it,  and  much 
of  evil,  no  more  a  fit  subject  for  enthusiastic  admiration  than 
for  violent  obloquy.  I  honor  and  sympathize  entirely  with 
the  feelings  entertained ;  I  only  think  that  they  might  all  of 
them  select  a  worthier  object ;  that  whether  they  be  pious  and 
devout,  or  patriotic,  or  romantic,  or  of  whatever  class  soever, 
there  is  for  each  and  all  of  these  a  true  object  on  Avhich  they 
may  fasten  without  danger  and  with  infinite  benefit ;  for  surely 
the  feeling  of  entire  love  and  admiration  is  one,  which  we 
cannot  safely  part  with,  and  there  are  provided,  by  God's  good- 
ness, worthy  and  perfect  objects  of  it ;  but  these  can  never  be 
human  institutions,  which,  being  necessarily  full  of  imperfec- 
tion, required  to  be  viewed  with  an  impartial  judgment,  not 
idolized  by  an  uncritical  affection.  And  that  common  meta- 
phor about  our  "  Mother  the  Church,"  is  unscriptural  and  mis- 
chievous, because  the  feeling  of  entire  filial  reverence  and 
love  which  we  owe  to  a  parent,  we  do  not  owe  to  our  fellow- 
Christians  ;  we  owe  them  brotherly  love,  meekness,  readiness 
to  bear,  &c.,  but  not  filial  reverence,  "  to  them  I  give  place  by 
subjection,  no  not  for  an  hour."  Now,  if  I  were  a  Utilitarian, 
I  should  not  care  for  what  I  think  a  misappli cation  of  the 
noblest  feelings ;  for  then  I  should  not  care  for  the  danger  to 
which  this  misapplication  exposes  the  feelings  themselves ; 
but  as  it  is,  I  dread  to  see  the  evils  of  the  Reformation  of 
the  sixteenth  century  repeated  over  again ;  superstition  pro- 
voking profaneness,  and  ignorance  and  violence  on  one  side 
leading  to  equal  ignorance  and  violence  on  the  other,  to  the 
equal  injury  of  both  truth  and  love.  I  should  feel  greatly 
obliged  to  you,  if  you  could  tell  me  anything  that  seems  to 
you  a  flaw  in  the  reasoning  of  those  pages  of  the  Postscript 
of  my  pamphlet  which  speak  of  Episcopacy,  and  of  what  is 
commonly  called  the  "alliance  between  Church  and  State." 
In  the  last  point  I  am  far  more  orthodox,  according  to  the 
standard  of  our  reformers,  than  either  the  Toleration*  men  or 

*  "  I  should  like,"  he  said,  "  to  see  the  Toleration  Act  and  the  Act  of 
Uniformity  burnt  side  by  side." 


824  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

the  High-Church  men,  but  those  notions  are  now  out  of 
fashion,  and  what  between  religious  bigotry  and  civil  licen- 
tiousness, all,  I  suppose,  will  go.  But  I  will  have  compassion 
on  your  patience. 

It  was  delightful  to  hear  of  you  and  yours  in  Devonshire. 
I  wish  they  would  put  you  on  a  commission  of  some  sort  or 
other  that  might  take  you  into  Westmoreland  some  summer 
or  winter.  When  our  house  is  quite  finished,  do  you  not 
think  that  the  temptation  will  be  great  to  me  to  go  and  live 
there,  and  return  to  my  old  Laleham  way  of  life  on  the  Rotha, 
instead  of  on  the  Thames  ?  But  independent  of  more  worldly 
considerations,  my  great  experiment  here  is  in  much  too  in- 
teresting a  situation  to  abandon  lightly.  You  will  be  amused 
when  I  tell  you  that  I  am  becoming  more  and  more  a  convert 
to  the  advantages  of  Latin  and  Greek  verse,  and  more  sus~ 
picious  of  the  mere  fact  system,  that  would  cram  with  knowl- 
edge of  particular  things,  and  call  it  information.  My  own 
lessons  with  the  Sixth  Form  are  directed  now  to  the  best  of 
my  power  to  the  furnishing  rules  or  formulae  for  them  to 
work  with,  e.  g.  rules  to  be  observed  in  translation,  prin- 
ciples of  taste  as  to  the  choice  of  English  words,  as  to  the 
keeping  or  varying  idioms  and  metaphors,  &c.,  or  in  history, 
rules  of  evidence  or  general  forms  for  the  dissection  of  cam- 
paigns, or  the  estimating  the  importance  of  wars,  revolutions, 
&c.  This,  together  with  the  opening  as  it  were  the  sources 
of  knowledge,  by  telling  them  where  they  can  find  such  and 
such  things,  and  giving  them  a  notion  of  criticism,  not  to 
swallow  things  whole,  as  the  scholars  of  an  earlier  period  too 
often  did,  —  is  what  I  am  laboring  at,  much  more  than  at 
giving  information.  And  the  composition  is  mending  de- 
cidedly; though  speaking  to  an  Etonian,  I  am  well  aware 
that  our  amended  state  would  be  with  you  a  very  degenerate 
one.  But  we  are  looking  up,  certainly,  and  pains  are  taking 
in  the  lower  Forms,  of  which  we  shall  I  think  soon  see  the 
fruit. 

I  am  getting  on  with  Thucydides  myself,  and  am  nearly  in 
the  middle  of  the  seventh  book  ;  at  Allan  Bank  in  the  sum- 
mer I  worked  on  the  Roman  History,  and  hope  to  do  so 
again  in  the  winter.  It  is  very  inspiring  to  write  with  such 
a  view  before  one's  eyes  as  that  from  our  drawing-room  at 
Allan  Bank,  where  the  trees  of  the  shrubbery  gradually  run 
np  into  the  trees  of  the  cliff,  and  the  mountain-side,  with  its 
infinite  variety  of  rocky  peaks  and  points  on  which  the  cattle 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  325 

expatiate,  rises  over  the  tops  of  the  trees.  Trevenen  Penrose 
and  his  wife  were  with  us  for  nearly  a  month  in  Westmore- 
land, and  enjoyed  the  country  as  much  as  we  did.  He  is 
laboring  most  admirably  and  effectually  at  Coleby.  I  saw 
Southey  once  at  Keswick,  and  had  a  very  friendly  interview  : 
he  asked  me  to  go  over  and  stay  with  him  for  a  day  or  two 
in  the  winter,  which  I  think  I  should  like  much.  His  cousin, 
Herbert  Hill,  is  now  the  tutor  to  my  own  boys.  He  lives  in 
Rugby,  and  the  boys  go  to  him  every  day  to  their  great  ben- 
efit. He  is  a  Fellow  of  New  College,  and  it  rejoices  me  to 
talk  over  Winchester  recollections  together.  Your  little 

goddaughter  is  my  pupil  twice  a  week  hi  Delectus 

Her  elder  sister  is  my  pupil  three  tunes  a  week  in  Virgil,  and 
once  in  the  Greek  Testament,  and  promises  to  do  very  well 
hi  both.  I  have  yet  a  great  many  things  to  say,  but  I  will 
not  keep  my  letter ;  how  glad  I  should  be  if  you  could  ever 
come  down  to  us  for  even  a  single  Sunday,  but  I  suppose  I 
must  not  ask  it. 

LXX.      TO   JACOB   ABBOTT. 

(Author  of"  The  Young  Christian,"  &c.) 

Rugby,  November  1, 1833. 

Although  I  have  not  the  honor  of  being  personally  known 
to  you,  yet  my  great  admiration  of  your  little  book,  "  The 
Young  Christian,"  and  the  circumstance  of  my  being  engaged, 
like  yourself,  in  the  work  of  education,  induce  me  to  hope, 
that  you  will  forgive  the  liberty  I  am  taking  hi  now  address- 
ing you.  A  third  consideration  weighs  with  me,  and  in  this  I 
feel  sure  that  you  will  sympathize;  that  it  is  desirable  on 
every  occasion  to  enlarge  the  friendly  communication  of  our 
country  with  yours.  The  publication  of  a  work  like  yours 
in  America  was  far  more  delightful  to  me  than  its  publication 
in  England  could  have  been.  Nothing  can  be  more  important 
to  the  future  welfare  of  mankind,  than  that  God's  people, 
serving  Hun  in  power  and  in  love,  and  hi  a  sound  mind, 
should  deeply  influence  the  national  character  of  the  United 
States,  which  in  many  parts  of  the  Union  is  undoubtedly  ex- 
posed to  influences  of  a  very  different  description,  owing  to 
circumstances  apparently  beyond  the  control  of  human  power 
and  wisdom. 

I  request  your  acceptance  of  a  volume  of  Sermons,  most  of 
which,  as  you  will  see,  were  addressed  to  boys  or  very  young 

VOL.  I.  28 


326  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

men,  and  which  therefore  coincide  in  intention  with  your  own 
admirable  book.*  And  at  the  same  time  I  venture  to  send 
you  a  little  work  of  mine  on  a  different  subject,  for  no  other 
reason,  I  believe,  than  the  pleasure  of  submitting  my  views 
upon  a  great  question  to  the  judgment  of  a  mind  furnished 
morally  and  intellectually  as  yours  must  be. 

I  have  been  for  five  years  head  of  this  school.  [After  de- 
scribing the  manner  of  its  foundation  and  growth.]  You  may 
imagine,  then,  that  I  am  engaged  in  a  great  and  anxious 
labor,  and  must  have  considerable  experience  of  the  difficulty 
of  turning  the  young  mind  to  know  and  love  God  in  Christ 

I  have  understood  that  Unitarianism  is  becoming  very 
prevalent  in  Boston,  and  I  am  anxious  to  know  what  the 
complexion  of  Unitarianism  amongst  you  is.  I  mean  whether 
it  is  Arian  or  Socinian,  and  whether  its  disciples  are  for  the 
most  part  men  of  hard  minds  and  indifferent  to  religion,  or 
whether  they  are  zealous  in  the  service  of  Christ,  according 
to  their  own  notions  of  His  claims  upon  their  gratitude  and 
love.  It  has  long  been  my  firm  belief  that  a  great  proportion 
of  Unitarianism  might  be  cured  by  a  wiser  and  more  chari- 
table treatment  on  the  part  of  their  adversaries,  if  these 
would  but  consider  what  is  the  main  thing  in  the  Gospel,  and 
that  even  truth  is  not  always  to  be  insisted  upon,  if  by  forcing 
it  upon  the  reception  of  those  who  are  not  prepared  for  it, 
they  are  thereby  tempted  to  renounce  what  is  not  only  true, 
but  essential  —  a  character  which  assuredly  does  not  belong 
to  all  true  propositions,  whether  about  things  human  or  things 
divine. 

I  XXI.       TO    THE    ARCHBISHOP    OF    DUBLIN. 

Rugby,  November  8,  1833. 

Would  any  good  be  likely  to  come  of  it,  if  I  were 

one  day  to  send  you  a  specimen  of  such  corrections  in  our 
authorized  version  of  the  Scriptures,  such  as  seem  to  me  de- 
sirable, and  such  as  could  shock  no  one  ?  I  have  had,  and 
am  having  daily,  so  much  practice  in  translation,  and  am 
taking  so  much  pains  to  make  the  boys  vary  their  language 
and  their  phraseology,  according  to  the  age  and  style  of  the 
writer  whom  they  are  translating,  that  I  think  I  may  be 

*  His  opinion  of  the  Corner-Stone  is  given  in  a  note  to  the  second  Appen- 
dix of  his  third  volume  of  Sermons,  p.  440. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  327 

trusted  for  introducing  no  words  or  idiom  unsuited  to  the 
general  style  of  the  present  translation,  nothing  to  lessen  the 
purity  of  its  Saxon,  or  to  betray  a  modern  interpolation.  My 
object  would  be  to  alter  in  the  very  language,  as  far  as  I  could 
guess  it,  which  the  translators  themselves  would  have  used, 
had  they  only  had  our  present  knowledge  of  Greek.  I  think 
also  that  the  results  of  modern  criticism  should  so  far  be  no- 
ticed, as  that  some  little  clauses,  omitted  in  all  the  best  MSS., 
should  be  printed  in  italics,  and  important  various  readings  of 
equal  or  better  authority  than  the  received  text,  should  be 
noticed  in  the  margin.  Above  all,  it  is  most  important  that 
the  division  into  chapters  should  be  mended,  especially  as 
regards  the  public  reading  in  the  Church,  and  that  the  choice 
of  lessons  from  the  Old  Testament  should  be  improved,  which 
really  could  hardly  have  been  worse,  unless  it  had  been  done 
on  purpose. 

It  is  almost  inconceivable  to  me  that  you  should  misunder- 
stand any  book  that  you  read :  and,  if  such  a  thing  does  hap- 
pen, I  am  afraid  that  it  must  be  the  writer's  fault  But 
I  cannot  remember  that  I  have  altered  my  opinions  since  my 
pamphlet  (on  the  Catholic  claims),  nor  do  I  see  anything 
there  inconsistent  with  my  doctrine  (of  Church  and  State)  in 
the  Postscript  to  the  pamphlet  on  Church  Reform.  I  always 
grounded  the  right  to  emancipation  on  the  principle  that  Ire- 
land was  a  distinct  nation,  entitled  to  govern  itself.  I  know 
full  well  that  my  principles  would  lead  to  the  establishment 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  in  three  fourths  of  Ireland ; 
but  this  conclusion  was  not  wanted  then,  and  the  right  to 
emancipation  followed  a  fortiori  from  the  right  to  govern 
themselves  as  a  nation,  without  entering  upon  the  question  of 
the  Establishment.  Those  who  think  that  Catholicism  is 
idolatry  ought,  on  their  own  principles,  to  move  heaven  and 
earth  for  the  repeal  of  the  Union,  and  to  let  O'Connell  rule 
his  Kelts  their  own  way.  I  think  that  a  Catholic  is  a  mem- 
ber of  Christ's  Church  just  as  much  as  I  am ;  and  I  could 
well  endure  one  form  of  that  Church  in  Ireland,  and  another 
in  England.  And  if  you  look  (it  is  to  be  found  in  the  second 
volume  of  Voltaire's  Siecle  de  Louis  XIV.)  for  the  four  Arti- 
cles resolved  on  by  the  Gallican  Church  in  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  you  will  see  a  precedent  and  a  means 
pointed  out,  whereby  every  Roman  Catholic  national  Church 
may  be  led  to  reform  itself;  and  I  only  hope  that  when  they 
do  they  will  reform  themselves  so  far  as  to  be  thorough  Chris' 


328  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

tians,  and  avoid,  as  they  would  a  dog  or  a  viper,  the  errors 
which  marred  the  Protestant  Reformation  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  destroying  things  most  noble  and  most  purifying,  as 
well  as  things  superstitious  and  hurtful. 

[After  speaking  of  a  reported  calumny  against  himself  in 
Oxford.]  I  will  trust  no  man  when  he  turns  fanatic ;  and 
really  these  High  Churchmen  are  far  more  fanatical  and 
much  more  foolish  than  Irving  himself.  Irving  appealed  to 
the  gifts  of  tongues  and  of  healing,  which  he  alleged  to  exist 
in  his  congregation,  as  proofs  that  the  Holy  Spirit  was  with 
them  ;  but  the  High  Churchmen  abandon  reason,  and  impute 
motives,  and  claim  to  be  Christ's  only  Church,  —  and  where 
are  the  "  signs  of  an  apostle "  to  be  seen  among  them,  or 
where  do  they  pretend  to  show  them  ? 

I. XXI  I.      TO    W.    W.   HULL,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  February  24,  1834. 

I  have,  as  usual,  many  things  on  hand,  or  rather 

in  meditation ;  but  time  fails  me  sadly,  and  my  physical  con- 
stitution seems  to  require  more  sleep  than  it  did,  which 
abridges  my  time  still  more.  Yet  I  was  never  better  or 
stronger  than  I  was  in  "Westmoreland  during  the  winter,  or 
indeed  than  I  am  now.  But  I  feel,  more  and  more,  that, 
though  my  constitution  is  perfectly  sound,  yet  it  is  not  strong ; 
and  my  nervous  system  would  soon  wear  me  out  if  I  lived  in 
a  state  of  much  excitement.  Body  and  mind  alike  seem  to 
repose  greedily  in  delicious  quiet  without  dulness,  which  we 
enjoy  in  Westmoreland. 

It  is  easier  to  speak  of  body  and  mind  than  of  that  which  is 
of  more  worth  than  either.  I  doubt  whether  we  have  enough 
of  Christian  Confession  amongst  us ;  *  the  superstition  of 
Popery  in  this,  as  in  other  matters,  doubly  injured  the  good 
which  it  corrupted ;  first  by  corrupting  it,  and  then,  "  traitor 
like,  by  betraying  it  to  the  axe  "  of  too  hasty  reformation.  Yet 
surely  one  object  of  the  Christian  Church  was  to  enable  us  to 
aid  in  bearing  one  another's  burthens  ;  not  to  enable  a  minis- 
ter to  pretend  to  bear  those  of  all  his  neighbors.  One  is  so 
hindered  from  speaking  of  one's  spiritual  state,  that  one  is  led 
even  to  think  of  it  less  frequently  than  is  wholesome.  I  am 
learning  to  think  more  and  more  how  unbelief  is  at  the  bot- 

*  See  Sermons,  vol.  iii.  p.  313. 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  329 

torn  of  all  our  evil ;  how  our  one  prayer  should  be  "  Increase 
our  faith."  And  we  do  fearfully  live,  as  it  were,  out  of  God's 
atmosphere :  we  do  not  keep  that  continual  consciousness  of 
His  reality  which  I  conceive  we  ought  to  have,  and  which 
should  make  Him  more  manifest  to  our  souls,  than  the  She- 
chinah  was  to  the  eyes  of  the  Israelites.  I  have  many  fresh 
sermons ;  and  my  wife  wants  another  volume  printed ;  but  I 
do  not  think  there  would  be  enough  of  systematic  matter  to 
make  a  volume,  and  mere  specimens  of  my  general  preaching 
I  have  given  already.  I  trust  you  will  come  next  week  ;  life 
is  too  uncertain  to  admit  of  passing  over  opportunities.  You 
have  heard,  probably,  that  Augustus  Hare  is  likely  soon  to 
follow  poor  Lowe,  and  to  lay  his  bones  in  Rome  ;  he  is  far 
gone,  they  say,  in  a  consumption.  May  God  bless  you,  my 
dear  Hull,  in  Jesus  Christ,  both  you  and  yours  forever. 

LXXin.      TO    REV.    F.    C.    BLACKSTONE. 

Rugby,  February  26,  1834. 

I  often  think  what  may  be  your  views  of  the 

various  aspects  of  things  in  general  —  to  what  notions  you  are 
more  and  more  becoming  wedded ;  for,  though  I  think  that 
men,  who  are  lovers  of  truth,  become  less  and  less  attached 
to  any  mere  party  as  they  advance  in  life,  and  certainly  be- 
come, in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  more  tolerant,  yet  their 
views  also  acquire  greater  range  and  consistency,  and  what 
they  once  saw  as  scattered  truths,  they  learn  to  combine  with 
one  another,  so  as  to  make  each  throw  light  on  the  other ;  so 
that  their  principles  become  more  fixed,  while  their  likings 
or  dislikings  of  particular  persons  or  parties  become  more 
moderate 

Our  residence  in  Westmoreland  attaches  us  all  to  it  more 
and  more ;  the  refreshment  which  it  affords  me  is  wonderful ; 
and  it  is  especially  so  in  the  winter,  when  the  country  is 
quieter,  and  actually,  as  I  think,  more  beautiful  than  in  sum- 
mer. I  was  often  reminded,  as  I  used  to  come  home  to  Gras- 
mere  of  an  evening,  and  seemed  to  be  quite  shut  in  by  the 
surrounding  mountains,  of  the  comparison  of  the  hills  standing 
about  Jerusalem,  with  God  standing  about  his  people.  The 
impression  which  the  mountains  gave  me,  was  never  one  of 
bleakness  or  wildness,  but  of  a  sort  of  paternal  shelter  and 
protection  to  the  valley ;  and  in  those  violent  storms  which 
were  so  frequent  this  winter,  our  house  lay  snug  beneath  its 
28* 


830  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

cliff,  and  felt  comparatively  nothing  of  the  wind.  We  had  no 
snow  in  the  valleys,  but  frequently  a  thick  powdering  on  the 
higher  mountains,  while  all  below  was  green  and  warm.  The 
School  goes  on  very  fairly  ;  with  its  natural  proportion  of  in- 
terest and  of  annoyance.  I  am  daily  more  and  more  struck 
with  the  very  low  average  of  intellectual  power,  and  of  the 
difficulty  of  meeting  those  various  temptations,  both  intellect- 
ual and  moral,  which  stand  in  boys'  way ;  a  school  shows  as 
undisguisedly  as  any  place  the  corruption  of  human  nature, 
and  the  monstrous  advantage  with  which  evil  starts,  if  I  may 
so  speak,  in  its  contest  with  good. 


LXXIV.      TO   REV.  JULIUS   BABE. 

(On  the  death  of  his  brother  Augustus  Hare.) 

Rugby,  March  10, 1834. 

I  will  not  trouble  you  with  many  words  ;  but  it  seemed  un- 
natural to  me  not  to  write,  after  the  account  from  Rome, 
which  Arthur  Stanley  this  morning  communicated  to  me.  I 
do  not  attempt  to  condole,  or  to  say  anything  further  than 
that,  having  known  your  brother  for  more  than  twenty-five 
years,  and  having  experienced  unvaried  kindness  from  him 
since  I  first  knew  him,  I  hope  that  I  can  in  some  degree  ap- 
preciate what  you  have  lost.  Of  all  men  whom  I  ever  knew, 
he  was  the  one  of  whom  Bunsen  most  strongly  reminded  me, 
so  that  he  seemed  like  Bunsen  in  England,  as  Bunsen  had 
seemed  like  him  in  Italy.  God  grant  that  I  may  try  to  re- 
semble them  both  hi  all  the  nobleness  and  beauty  of  their 
goodness. 

LXXV.      TO    EEV.   DR.   HAWKINS. 

(With  regard  to  tracts  which  he  had  intended  to  circulate  in  opposition  to 
the  early  Numbers  of  the  "  Tracts  for  the  Times.") 

Rugby,  April  14,  1834. 

The  concluding  part  of  your  letter  is  a  very  good  reason  for 
my  not  asking  you  to  trouble  yourself  any  further  about  my 
papers.  If  the  Tracts  in  question  are  not  much  circulated, 
then,  of  course,  it  would  be  a  pity  to  make  them  known  by 
answering  them ;  but  this  is  a  matter  of  fact  which  I  know 
not  how  to  ascertain.  They  are  strenuously  puffed  by  the 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  331 

British  Magazine,  and  strenuously  circulated  amongst  the 
clergy ;  of  course  I  do  not  suppose  that  any  living  man  out  of 
the  clergy  is  in  the  slightest  danger  of  being  influenced  by 
them,  except  so  far  as  they  may  lead  him  to  despise  the  clergy 
for  countenancing  them. 

You  do  not  seem  to  me  to  apprehend  the  drift  of  these 
Tracts,  nor  the  point  of  comparison  between  these  and  St. 
Paul's  adversaries.  If  they  merely  broached  one  opinion  and 
I  combated  it,  it  might  be  doubted  which  of  us  most  disturbed 
the  peace  of  the  Church.  But  they  are  not  defending  the 
lawfulness  or  expediency  of  Episcopacy,  which  certainly  I  am 
very  far  from  doubting,  but  its  necessity ;  a  doctrine  in  ordi- 
nary times  gratuitous,  and  at  the  same  time  harmless,  save  as 
a  folly.  But  now  the  object  is  to  provoke  the  clergy  to  resist 
the  Government  Church  Reforms,  and  if,  for  so  resisting, 
they  get  turned  out  of  their  livings,  to  maintain  that  they  are 
the  true  clergy,  and  their  successors  schismatics;  above  all, 
if  the  Bishops  were  deprived,  as  in  King  William's  time,  to 
deny  the  authority  of  the  Bishops  who  may  succeed  them, 
though  appointed  according  to  the  law  of  the  land.  All  this 
is  essentially  schismatical  and  anarchical :  in  Elizabeth's  time 
it  would  have  been  reckoned  treasonable ;  and  in  answering  it, 
I  am  not  attacking  Episcopacy,  or  the  present  constitution  of 
the  English  Church,  but  simply  defending  the  common  peace 
and  order  of  the  Church  against  a  new  outbreak  of  Puritan- 
ism, which  will  endure  nothing  but  its  own  platform. 

Now  to  insist  on  the  necessity  of  Episcopacy,  is  exactly  like 
insisting  on  the  necessity  of  circumcision ;  both  are  and  were 
lawful,  but  to  insist  on  either  as  necessary,  is  unchristian,  and 
binding  the  Church  with  a  yoke  of  carnal  ordinances ;  and  the 
reason  why  circumcision,  although  expressly  commanded  once, 
was  declared  not  binding  upon  Christians,  is  much  stronger 
against  the  binding  nature  of  Episcopacy,  which  never  was 
commanded  at  all ;  the  reason  being,  that  all  forms  of  govern- 
ment and  ritual  are  in  the  Christian  Church  indifferent  and 
to  be  decided  by  the  Church  itself,  pro  temporum  et  locorum 
ratione,  "  the  Church "  not  being  the  clergy,  but  the  congre- 
gation of  Christians. 

If  you  will  refer  me  to  any  book  which  contains  what  you 
think  the  truth,  put  sensibly,  on  the  subject  of  the  Apostolical 
Succession,  I  shall  really  be  greatly  obliged  to  you  to  men- 
tion it.  I  went  over  the  matter  again  in  the  holidays  with 
Warburton  and  Hooker ;  and  the  result  was  a  complete  con- 


332  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

firraation  of  the  views,  which  I  have  entertained  for  years, 
and  a  more  complete  appreciation  of  the  confusions  on  which 
the  High-Church  doctrines  rest,  and  of  the  causes  which  have 
led  to  its  growth  at  different  times. 

By  the  way,  I  never  accused  Keble  or  Newman  of  saying, 
that  to  belong  to  a  true  Church  would  save  a  bad  man ;  but 
of  what  is  equally  unchristian,  that  a  good  man  was  not  safe 
unless  he  belonged  to  an  Episcopal  Church ;  which  is  exactly 
not  allowing  God's  seal  without  it  be  countersigned  by  one  of 
their  own  forging.  Nor  did  I  say  they  were  bad  men,  but 
much  the  contrary ;  though  I  think  that  their  doctrine,  which 
they  believe,  I  doubt  not,  to  be  true,  is  in  itself  schismatical, 
profane,  and  unchristian.  And  I  think  it  highly  important 
that  the  evils  of  the  doctrine  should  be  shown  in  the  strongest 
terms ;  but  no  word  of  mine  has  impeached  the  sincerity  or 
general  character  of  the  men ;  and,  in  this  respect,  I  will  care- 
fully avoid  every  expression  that  may  be  thought  uncharitable. 

LXXVI.      TO   W.  W.   HULL,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  April  30,  1834. 

I  have  indeed  written  a  large  part  of  a  volume 

on  Church  and  State,  but  it  had  better  be  broken  up  into 
smaller  portions  to  be  published  at  first  separately,  though 
afterwards  it  may  be  altogether.  My  outline  of  the  whole 
question  is  this :  —  I.  That  the  State,  being  the  only  power 
sovereign  over  human  life,  has  for  its  legitimate  object  the 
happiness  of  its  people,  —  their  highest  happiness,  not  physi- 
cal only,  but  intellectual  and  moral;  in  short,  the  highest 
happiness  of  which  it  has  a  conception.  This  was  held,  I 
believe,  nearly  unanimously  till  the  eighteenth  century.  War- 
burton,  the  Utilitarians,  and  I  fear  Whately,*  maintain,  on 
the  contrary,  that  the  State's  only  object  is  "  the  conservation 
of  body  and  goods."  They  thus  play,  though  unintentionally, 
into  the  hands  of  the  upholders  of  ecclesiastical  power,  by 
destroying  the  highest  duty  and  prerogative  of  the  Common- 
wealth. JI.  Ecclesiastical  officers  may  be  regarded  in  two 
lights  only,  as  sovereign  or  independent ;  if  they  are  priests, 
or  if  they  are  rulers.  A.  Priests  are  independent,  as  deriv- 
ing either  from  supposed  holiness  of  race  or  person,  or  from 

*  The  views  of  Archbishop  Whately  on  this  subject  were  afterwards  fullj 
•et  forth  in  the  fourth  and  fifth  volumes  of  his  Essays. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  333 

their  exclusive  knowledge  of  the  Divine  Will,  a  title  to  exe- 
cute certain  functions,  which  none  but  themselves  can  perform ; 
and  therefore  these  functions,  being  of  prime  necessity,  enable 
them  to  treat  with  the  State  not  as  members  or  subjects  of  it, 
but  as  foreigners  conferring  on  it  a  benefit,  and  selling  this 
on  their  own  terms.  B.  Rulers,  of  course,  are  independent 
and  sovereign,  ipsa  vi  termini.  III.  But  the  ecclesiastical 
officers  of  Christianity,  are  by  God's  appointment  neither 
priests  nor  rulers.  A.  Not  Priests,  for  there  is  one  only  Priest, 
and  all  the  rest  are  brethren ;  none  has  any  holiness  of  person 
or  race  more  than  another,  none  has  any  exclusive  possession 
of  divine  knowledge.  B.  Not  Rulers,  for  Christianity  not 
being  a  Oprja-Kfia  or  ritual  service,  but  extending  to  every  part 
of  human  life,  the  rules  of  Christians,  qua  Christians,  must 
rule  them  in  all  matters  of  principle  and  practice;  and,  if 
this  power  be  given  to  Bishops,  Priests,  and  Deacons  by 
divine  appointment,  Innocent  the  Third  was  right,  and  every 
Christian  country  should  be  like  Paraguay.  You  shall  have 
the  rest  by  and  by ;  meantime,  I  send  you  up  a  paper  about 
the  Universities.  If  you  like  it,  sign  it,  and  try  to  get  others 
to  do  so ;  if  you  do  not,  burn  it. 

LXXVII.      TO    REV.   JULIUS    HAKE. 

Rugby,  May  12, 1834. 

I  would  admit  Unitarians,  like  all  other  Christians, 

if  the  University  system  were  restored,  and  they  might  have 
halls  of  their  own.  Nay,  I  would  admit  them  at  the  colleges 
if  they  would  attend  chapel  and  the  Divinity  Lectures,  which 
some  of  them,  I  think,  would  do.  But  everything  seems  to 
me  falling  into  confusion  between  two  parties,  whose  ignorance 
and  badness  I  believe  I  shrink  from  with  the  most  perfect 
impartiality  of  dislike.  I  must  petition  against  the  Jew  Bill, 
and  wish  that  you  or  some  man  like  you  would  expose  that 
low  Jacobinical  notion  of  citizenship,  that  a  man  acquires 
a  right  to  it  by  the  accident  of  his  being  littered  inter  quatuor 
maria,  or  because  he  pays  taxes.*  I  wish  I  had  the  knowl- 

*  Extract  from  a  letter  to  Mr.  Sergeant  Coleridge.  "  The  correlative  to 
taxation,  in  my  opinion,  is  not  citizenship,  but  protection.  Taxation  may 
imply  representation  quoad  hoc,  and  I  should  have  no  objection  to  let  the 
Jews  tax  themselves  in  a  Jewish  House  of  Assembly,  like  a  colony  or  like 
the  clergy  of  old ;  but  to  confound  the  right  of  taxing  one's  self  with  the  right 
of  general  legislation,  is  one  of  the  Jacobinical  confusions  of  later  days, 
arising  from  those  low  Warburtonian  notions  of  the  ends  of  political  soci- 
ety." See  also  Preface  to  his  Edition,  of  Thucydides,  vol.  iii.  p.  xv.  now 
published  in  Miscellaneous  Works. 


834  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

edge  and  the  time  to  state  fully  the  ancient  system  of 
fu'roucoi,  &c.,  and  the  principle  on  which  it  rested  ;  that  differ- 
ent races  have  different  i/o/u/ia,  and  that  an  indiscriminate 
mixture  breeds  a  perfect  "colluvio  omnium  rerum."  Now 
Christianity  gives  us  that  bond  perfectly,  which  race  in  the 
ancient  world  gave  illiberally  and  narrowly,  for  it  gives  a  com- 
mon standard  of  PO/U/KI,  without  observing  distinctions,  which 
are,  in  fact,  better  blended. 

[This  letter,  as  well  as  the  preceding,  alludes  to  the  sub- 
joined Declaration,  circulated  by  him  for  signature.] 

"  The  undersigned  members  of  the  Universities  of  Oxford 
and  Cambridge,  many  of  them  being  engaged  in  education, 
entertaining  a  strong  sense  of  the  peculiar  benefits  to  be 
derived  from  studying  at  the  Universities,  cannot  but  consider 
it  as  a  national  evil,  that  these  benefits  should  be  inaccessible 
to  a  large  proportion  of  their  countrymen. 

"  While  they  feel  most  strongly  that  the  foundation  of  all 
education  must  be  laid  in  the  great  truths  of  Christianity,  and 
would  on  no  account  consent  to  omit  these,  or  to  teach  them 
imperfectly,  yet  they  cannot  but  acknowledge,  that  these  truths 
are  believed  and  valued  by  the  great  majority  of  Dissenters,  no 
less  than  by  the  Church  of  England ;  and  that  every  essential 
point  of  Christian  instruction  may  be  communicated  without 
touching  on  those  particular  questions  on  which  the  Church 
and  the  mass  of  Dissenters  are  at  issue. 

"  And,  while  they  are  not  prepared  to  admit  such  Dissenters 
as  differ  from  the  Church  of  England  on  the  most  essential 
points  of  Christian  truth,  such  as  the  modern  Unitarians  of 
Great  Britain,  they  are  of  opinion,  that  all  other  Dissenters 
may  be  admitted  into  the  Universities,  and  allowed  to  take 
degrees  there  with  great  benefit  to  the  country,  and  to  the 
probable  advancement  of  Christian  truth  and  Christian  charity 
amongst  members  of  all  persuasions." 

LXXVIII.      *TO    H.    BALSTON,*    ESQ. 

Rugby,  May  19, 1884. 

.....  I  am  very  glad  that  you  continue  to  practise  com- 
position, but  above  all  I  would  advise  you  to  make  an  abstract 
of  one  or  two  standard  works.  One,  I  should  say,  in  philoso- 

*  For  the  sake  of  convenience,  an  asterisk  has  been  prefixed  to  the  names 
of  those  correspondents  who  had  been  his  pupils  at  Rugby. 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  335 

phy ;  —  the  other  in  history.  I  would  not  be  in  a  hurry  to 
finish  them,  but  keep  them  constantly  going,  —  with  one  page 
always  clear  for  Notes.  The  abstract  itself  practises  you  in 
condensing  and  giving  in  your  own  words  what  another  man 
has  said ;  a  habit  of  great  value,  as  it  forces  one  to  think 
about  it,  which  extracting  merely  does  not.  It  further  gives 
a  brevity  and  simplicity  to  your  language,  two  of  the  greatest 
merits  which  style  can  have,  and  the  notes  give  you  an  op- 
portunity of  a  great  deal  of  original  composition,  besides  a 
constant  place  to  which  to  refer  anything  that  you  may  read 
in  other  books ;  for  having  such  an  abstract  on  hand,  you  will 
be  often  thinking  when  reading  other  books,  of  what  there 
may  be  in  them  which  will  bear  upon  your  abstract. 

The  latter  part  of  your  letter  I  very  heartily  thank  you  for : 
it  is  a  great  over-payment  of  any  exertions  of  mine  when  what 
it  would  be  a  breach  of  duty  in  me  to  omit  is  received  so 
kindly  and  gratefully.  At  the  same  time  I  have  always 
thought  that  it  was  quite  impossible  in  my  situation  to  avoid 
feeling  a  strong  personal  interest  in  most  of  those  whom  I 
have  had  to  do  with,  independently  of  professional  duty. 

I  shall  be  always  glad  to  see  you  or  to  hear  from  you. 

LXXIX.      TO    W.    EMPSON,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  June  11, 1834. 

The  political  matters  on  which  you  touch,  are  to 

me  of  such  intense  interest,  that  I  think  they  would  kill  me 
if  I  lived  more  in  the  midst  of  them ;  unless,  as  was  said  to 
be  the  case  with  the  Cholera,  they  would  be  less  disturbing 
when  near,  than  when  at  a  distance.  I  grieve  most  deeply 
at  this  ill-timed  schism  in  the  ministry,  and,  as  men,  who  have 
no  familiarity  with  the  practice  of  politics,  may  yet  fancy  that 
they  understand  their  principles,  so  it  seems  to  me  that  both 
Lord  Grey  and  the  seceders  are  wrong.  We  are  suffering 
here,  as  in  a  thousand  other  instances,  from  that  accursed 
division  between  Christians,  of  which  I  think  the  very  Arch- 
fiend must  be  KO.T  e'lox7?"  the  author.  The  good  Protestants 
and  bad  Christians  have  talked  nonsense,  and  worse  than  non- 
sense, so  long  about  Popery,  and  the  Beast,  and  Antichrist, 
and  Babylon,*  that  the  simple,  just,  and  Christian  measure  of 

*  "  The  Babylon  of  the  Revelations  is  chiefly  taken  from  the  Babylon  of 
the  Old  Testament,  which  it  resembles  in  pride  of  power,  whilst  the  images 
of  wealth  are  from  Tyre.  Pagan  Rome,  no  doubt,  was  the  immediate  ob- 


336  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

establishing  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  in  three  fifths  of 
Ireland,  seems  renounced  by  common  consent.  The  Protes- 
tant clergy  ought  not  to  have  their  present  revenues  in  Ireland 
—  so  far  I  agree  with  Lord  Grey  —  but  not  on  a  low  econom- 
ical view  of  their  pay  being  over-proportioned  to  their  work  ; 
but  because  Church  property  is  one  of  the  most  sacred  trusts, 
of  which  the  sovereign  •  power  in  the  Church,  (i.  e.  the  King 
and  Parliament,  not  the  Bishops  and  Clergy,)  is  appointed  by 
God  trustee.  It  is  a  property  set  apart  for  the  advancement 
of  direct  Christian  purposes,  first  by  furnishing  religious  in- 
struction and  comfort  to  the  grown-up  part  of  the  population  ; 
next  by  furnishing  the  same  to  the  young  in  the  shape  of 
religious  education.  Now  the  Christian  people  of  Ireland,  i.  e. 
in  my  sense  of  the  word  the  Church  of  Ireland,  have  a  right 
to  have  the  full  benefit  of  their  Church  property,  which  now 
they  cannot  have,  because  Protestant  clergymen  they  will  not 
listen  to.  I  think,  then,  that  it  ought  to  furnish  them  with 
Catholic  clergymen,  and  the  general  local  separation  of  the 
Catholic  and  Protestant  districts  would  render  this  as  easy  to 
effect  in  Ireland  as  it  was  in  Switzerland,  where,  after  their 
bloody  religious  wars  of  the  sixteenth  century,  certain  parishes 
in  some  of  the  Cantons,  where  the  religions  were  intermixed, 
were  declared  Protestant  and  others  Catholic  ;  and,  if  a  man 
turned  Catholic  in  a  Protestant  parish,  he  was  to  migrate  to  a 
Catholic  parish,  and  vice  versa.  If  this  cannot  be  done  yet, 
then  religious  grammar-schools,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  such 
as  were  founded  in  England  so  numerously  after  the  Reforma- 
tion, would  be  the  next  best  thing ;  but,  whilst  Ireland  con- 
tinues in  its  present  low  state  of  knowledge  and  religion,  I 
cannot  think  that  one  penny  of  its  Church  property  ought  to 
be  applied  to  the  merely  physical  or  ordinary  objects  of  govern- 
ment I  have  one  great  principle,  which  I  never  lose  sight 
of;  to  insist  strongly  on  the  difference  between  Christian  and 
nonchristian,  and  to  sink  into  nothing  the  differences  between 

ject  —  as  it  is  said, '  the  city  on  the  seven  hills,'  —  then  answering  in  power 
and  wealth  to  the  city  here  described.  But  in  the  higher  sense  it  is  the 
word  —  6  Ki'xrfjLos ;  and  wherever  a  worldly  spirit  prevails,  there,  in  some 
sense,  is  Babylon.  Thus,  Rev.  xviii.  4,  is  another  mode  of  expressing  Rom. 
xii.  2,  and  Rev.  xviii.  24,  of  1  John  iii.  13,  John  xv.  19."  —  Note  on  Rev. 
xviii.  "  The  great  secret,"  he  said,  "of  interpreting  the  Revelations  is,  to 
trace  the  images  back  to  their  first  appearance  in  the  Old  Testament  Proph- 
ets." What  to  me  is  a  decisive  proof  of  the  falsehood  of  the  usual  commen- 
taries on  the  Apocalypse  is,  that  the  history  which  they  present  of  the 
middle  ages,  and  of  Europe  generally,  is  such  as  no  one  in  his  senses  fairly 
reading  that  history  would  find  there." 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  337 

Christian  and  Christian.  I  am  sure  that  this  is  in  the  spirit 
of  the  Scriptures :  I  think  it  is  also  most  philosophical  and 
liberal ;  but  all  the  world  quarrels  either  with  one  half  of  my 
principle  or  with  the  other,  whereas  I  think  they  stand  and 
fall  together.  I  know  not  whether  Mr.  Spring  Rice  takes  a 
strong  interest  in  questions  concerning  education,  but  I  am 
very  anxious  —  the  more  so  from  the  confusions  prevailing 
about  the  nature  of  the  Universities  —  that  the  Universities 
should  be  restored,  that  is,  that  the  usurpations  of  the  Heads 
of  the  colleges  should  be  put  down,  according  to  those  excel- 
lent articles  of  Sir  W.  Hamilton's  which  appeared  in  the 
Edinburgh  Review  some  time  since.  I  think  that  this  is 
even  more  important  than  the  admission  of  the  Dissenters. 
And  also,  if  ever  the  question  of  National  education  comes 
definitely  before  the  government,  I  am  very  desirous  of  their 
not  "  centralizing  "  too  much,  but  availing  themselves  of  the 
existing  machinery,  which  might  be  done  to  a  great  extent, 
with  very  little  expense,  and  none  of  that  interference  with 
private  institutions,  or  even  with  foundations,  of  which  there 
is  so  great,  and  I  think  in  some  respects,  a  reasonable  fear. 
But  I  will  conclude  and  release  you. 

LXXX.      TO   REV.    DR.    LONGLEY. 

Rugby,  June  25,  1834. 

Though  sorry  that  you  did  not  concur  with  my  views,  yet 
I  was  not  much  surprised,  being  long  since  used  to  find  my- 
self in  a  minority  on  those  matters.  Yet  I  do  not  see  how 
any  man  can  avoid  the  impression  that  Dissent  cannot  exist 
much  longer  in  this  country,  as  it  does  now  ;  either  it  must 
be  comprehended  within  the  Church,  or  it  will  cease  in  another 
way,  by  there  being  no  Establishment  left  to  dissent  from. 
And,  as  I  think  that  men  will  never  be  wise  and  good  enough 
for  the  first,  so  I  see  everything  tending  towards  the  second  ; 
and  this  fancied  reaction  in  favor  of  the  High-Church  party 
seems  to  me  the  merest  illusion  of  the  world ;  it  is  like  that 
phantom  which  Minerva  sent  to  Hector  to  tempt  him  to  his 
fate,  by  making  him  believe  that  Deiphobus  was  at  hand  to 
help  him. 

Meantime,    our   little   commonwealth  here    goes  on   very 

quietly,   and   I   think   satisfactorily.     I   have   happily  more 

power  than  Lord  Grey's  government,  and  neither  Radicals  to 

call  for  more  nor  Tories  to  call  for  less,  and  so  I  can  reform 

VOL.  i.  29  v 


338  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

or  forbear  at  my  own  discretion I  find  Westmore- 
land very  convenient  in  giving  me  an  opportunity  of  having 
some  of  the  Sixth  Form  with  me  in  the  holidays ;  not  to  read 
of  course,  but  to  refresh  their  health  when  they  get  knocked 
up  by  the  work,  and  to  show  them  mountains  and  dales ;  a 
great  point  in  education,  and  a  great  desideratum  to  those 
who  only  know  the  central  or  southern  counties  of  England. 
I  must  ask  your  congratulations  on  having  finished  Thucydides, 
of  which  the  last  volume  will  appear,  I  hope,  in  October.  I 
have  just  completed  the  Eighth  Book,  and  hope  now  to  set 
vigorously  to  work  about  the  Roman  History. 

l.\\  \  I.      TO    THE    ARCHBISHOP    OF   DUBLIN. 

Rugby,  July  2,  1834. 

I  must  write  to  thank  you  for  your  Charge,  which  delighted 

me It  is  delightful  to  read  a  Charge  without  any 

folly  in  it,  and  written  so  heartily  in  the  spirit  of  a  Christian 
Episcopacy,  for  which  I  have  always  had  a  great  respect, 
though  not  exactly  after  the  fashion  of  Keble  and  Newman. 
I  trust,  if  it  please  God,  that  we  shall  meet  this  summer; 
and  it  is  truly  kind  in  you  to  try  to  make  your  arrangements 

suit  ours I  shall  bring  over  to  you  my  beginning  of 

"the  State  and  the  Church,"  which  I  shall  like  to  talk  over 

with  you The  other  day slept  at  our  house,  and 

fairly  asked  me  for  my  opinion  about  the  connection  of  Church 
and  State,  which  I  gave  him  at  some  length ;  and  I  found,  as 
indeed  he  confessed,  that  the  subject  was  one,  on  which  his 
ideas  were  all  at  sea ;  and  he  expressed  a  great  earnestness 
that  mething  should  be  written  on  the  subject  before  the 
next  session  of  Parliament  He  did  not  know  (and  I  think 
it  is  a  common  complaint)  the  Statutes  passed  about  the 
Church  in  Henry  the  Eighth's  and  Edward  the  Sixth's  reigns, 
and  which  are  still  the  Spxcu  of  its  constitution ;  if  that  may 
be  said  to  have  a  constitution  which  never  was  constituted,  but 
was  left  as  avowedly  unfinished  as  Cologne  Cathedral,  where 
they  left  a  crane  standing  on  one  of  the  half-built  towers  three 
hundred  years  ago,  and  have  renewed  the  crane  from  time  to 
time,  as  it  wore  out,  as  a  sign  not  only  that  the  building  was 
incomplete,  but  that  the  friends  of  the  Church  hoped  to  finish 
the  work  whenever  they  could.  Had  it  been  in  England,  the 
crane  would  have  been  speedily  destroyed,  and  the  friends  of 
the  Church  would  have  said  that  the  Church  was  finished  per- 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  339 

fectly  already,  and  that  none  but  its  enemies  would  dare  to 
suggest  that  it  wanted  anything  to  complete  its  symmetry  and 
usefulness. 

I  have  been  writing  two  sermons  on  the  evidences,  —  1st 
of  Natural  Religion,  —  and  2d,  of  Christianity,  intended  for 
the  use  of  those  of  my  boys  who  are  now  leaving  us  for  Col- 
lege. I  mean,  if  I  live,  to  preach  a  third  next  Sunday  on  the 
differences  between  Christians  and  Christians,  which,  as  oar 
two  Examiners  will  hear  it,  both  of  whom  have  published 
pamphlets  against  the  Dissenters,  will  not,  I  suspect,  be  very 
agreeable  to  them.  We  are  all  very  well,  and  rather  desire 
our  mountains,  though  all  things  have  gone  on  very  pleasantly 
so  far;  but  the  half-year  is  a  long  one,  certainly.  Do  you 
know  that  we  have  got  a  sort  of  Mechanics'  or  Tradesmen's 
Institution  in  Rugby ;  where  I  have  been  lecturing  twice  upon 
History,  and  drawing  two  great  charts,  and  coloring  them  to 
illustrate  my  lecture.  I  drew  one  chart  of  the  History  of 
England  and  France  for  the  last  350  years,  coloring  red  the 
periods  of  the  wars  of  each  country,  black  the  periods  of  civil 
war,  and  a  bright  yellow  line  at  the  side,  to  show  the  periods 
of  constitutional  government,  with  patches  of  brown  to  indi- 
cate seasons  of  great  distress,  &c.  I  have  some  thoughts  of 
having  them  lithographed  for  general  use 

LXXXII.   TO  A  PERSON  WHO  HAD  ONCE  BEEN  HIS  LANDLORD, 

And  was  ill  of  a  painful  disorder,  but  refused  to  see  the  clergyman  of  the 
parish,  or  allow  his  friends  to  address  him  on  religious  subjects. 

I  was  very  sorry  to  see  you  in  such  a  state  of  suffering,  and 
to  hear  from  your  friends,  that  you  were  so  generally.  I  do 
not  know  that  I  have  any  title  to  write  to  you  ;  but  you  once 
let  me  speak  to  you,  when  I  was  your  tenant,  about  a  subject 
on  which  I  took  it  very  kind  that  you  heard  me  patiently,  and 
trusting  to  that,  I  am  venturing  to  write  to  you  again. 

I  have  myself  been  blessed  with  very  constant  health ;  yet 
T  have  been  led  to  think  from  tune  to  time,  what  would  be  my 
greatest  support  and  comfort,  if  it  should  please  God  to  visit 
me  either  with  a  very  painful  or  a  very  dangerous  illness ;  and 
I  have  always  thought,  that  in  both,  nothing  would  do  me  so 
much  good,  as  to  read  over  and  over  again,  the  account  of  the 
sufferings  and  death  of  Christ,  as  given  in  the  different  Gos- 
pels. For,  if  it  be  a  painful  complaint,  we  shall  find  that,  in 
mere  pain,  He  suffered  most  severely  and  in  a  great  variety 


840  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

of  ways ;  and,  if  it  be  a  dangerous  complaint,  then  we  shall  see 
that  Christ  suffered  very  greatly  from  the  fear  of  death,  and 
was  very  sorely  troubled  in  His  mind  up  to  the  very  time 
almost  of  His  actually  dying.  And  one  gfreat  reason  why  He 
bore  all  this,  was  that  we  might  be  supported  and  comforted 
when  we  have  to  bear  the  same. 

But  when  I  have  thought  how  this  would  comfort  me,  it  is 
very  true  that  one  cannot  help  thinking  of  the  great  difference 
between  Christ  and  one's  self,  —  that  He  was  so  good,  and  that 
we  are  so  full  of  faults  and  bad  passions  of  one  kind  or  another. 
So  that  if  He  feared  death,  we  must  have  much  greater  reason 
to  fear  it :  and  so  indeed  we  have  were  it  not  for  Hun.  But 
He  bore  all  His  sufferings,  that  God  might  receive  us  after 
our  death,  as  surely  as  He  received  Christ  himself.  And 
surely  it  is  a  comfort  above  all  comfort,  that  we  are  not  only 
Suffering  no  more  than  Christ  suffered,  but  that  we  shall  be 
happy  after  our  sufferings  are  over,  as  truly  as  He  is  happy. 

Dear  Mr. ,  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  which  hinders 

you  or  me  from  having  this  comfort,  but  the  badness  and  hard- 
ness of  our  hearts,  which  will  not  let  us  open  ourselves  heart- 
ily to  God's  love  towards  us.  He  desires  to  love  us  and  to 
keep  us,  but  we  shut  up  ourselves  from  Him,  and  keep  our- 
selves in  fear  and  misery,  because  we  will  not  receive  His 
goodness.  Oh !  how  heartily  we  should  pray  for  one  another, 
and  for  ourselves,  that  God  would  teach  us  to  love  Him,  and 
be  thankful  to  Him,  as  He  loves  us.  We  cannot,  indeed,  love 
God,  if  we  keep  any  evil  or  angry  passion  within  us.  If  we 
do  not  forgive  all  who  may  have  wronged  or  affronted  us, 
God  has  declared  most  solemnly  that  He  will  not  forgive  us. 
There  is  no  concealing  this,  or  getting  away  from  it.  If  we 
cannot  forgive  we  cannot  be  forgiven.  But  when  I  think  of 
God's  willingness  to  forgive  me  every  day,  —  though  every 
day  I  offend  Him  many  times  over  —  it  makes  me  more  dis- 
posed than  anything  else  in  the  world  to  forgive  those  who 
have  offended  me :  and  this  I  think  is  natural ;  unless  our 
hearts  are  more  hard,  than  with  our  faults  they  commonly  are. 
If  you  think  me  taking  a  liberty  in  writing  this,  I  can  only 
beg  you  to  remember,  that  as  I  hope  Christ  will  pave  me,  so 
He  bids  me  try  to  bring  my  neighbors  to  Him  also ;  and  espe- 
cially those  whom  I  have  known,  and  from  whom  I  have 
received  kindness.  May  Christ  save  us  both,  and  turn  our 
hearts  to  love  Him  and  our  neighbors,  even  as  He  has  loved 
Us,  and  has  died  for  us. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  341 

LXXXIII.       TO    HIS    AUNT,   MRS.    FRANCIS    DELAFIELD. 

( On  her  77th  birthday.) 

Rugby,  September  10,  1834. 

This  is  your  birthday,  on  which  I  have  thought  of  you,  and 
loved  you,  for  as  many  years  past  as  I  can  remember.  No 
10th  of  September  will  ever  pass  without  my  thinking  of  you 
and  loving  you.  I  pray  that  God  will  keep  you  through 
Jesus  Christ,  with  all  blessing,  under  every  trial,  which  your 
age  may  bring  upon  you ;  and  if,  through  Christ,  we  meet 
together  after  the  Resurrection,  there  will  then  be  nothing  of 
old  or  young  —  of  healthy  or  sickly  —  of  clear  memory,  or  of 
confused  —  but  we  shall  be  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus. 

LXXXIV.       TO    CHEVALIER    BUNSEN. 

Rugby,  September  29,  1834. 

Your  encouragement  of  my  Roman  History  is  the 

most  cheering  thing  I  have  ever  had  to  excite  me  to  work 
upon  it.  I  am  working  a  little  on  the  materials,  and  have  got 
Orelli's  "  Inscriptiones,"  and  Haubold's  "  Monumenta  Lega- 
lia,"  which  seem  both  very  useful  works.  But  I  am  stopped 
at  every  turn  by  my  ignorance,  for  instance  what  is  known  of 
the  Illyrians,  the  great  people  that  were  spread  from  the  bor- 
ders of  Greece  to  the  Danube  ?  —  what  were  their  race  and 
language  ?  —  and  what  is  known  of  all  their  country  at  this 
moment  ?  I  imagine  that  even  the  Austrian  provinces  of  Dal- 
matia  are  imperfectly  known ;  and  who  has  explored  the  de- 
tails of  Moesia  ?  It  seems  to  me  that  a  Roman  History  should 
embrace  the  history  of  every  people  with  whom  the  Romans 
were  successively  concerned ;  not  so  as  to  go  into  all  the  de- 
tails, which  are  generally  worthless,  but  yet  so  as  to  give  some- 
thing of  a  notion  of  the  great  changes,  both  physical  and 
moral,  which  the  different  parts  of  the  world  have  under- 
gone. How  earnestly  one  desires  to  present  to  one's  mind  a 
peopled  landscape  of  Gaul,  or  Germany,  or  Britain,  before 
Rome  encountered  them ;  to  picture  the  freshness  of  the 
scenery,  when  all  the  earth's  resources  were  as  yet  untouched, 
as  well  as  the  peculiar  form  of  the  human  species  in  that  par- 
ticular country,  its  language,  its  habits,  its  institutions.  And 
yet,  these  indulgences  of  our  intellectual  faculties  match 
strangely  with  the  fever  of  our  times,  and  the  pressure  for  life 
and  death  which  is  going  on  all  around  us.  The  disorders  in 
29* 


342  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

our  social  state  appear  to  me  to  continue  unabated :  and  you 
know  what  trifles  mere  political  grievances  are,  when  com- 
pared with  these.  Education  is  wanted  to  improve  the  physi- 
cal condition  of  the  people,  and  yet  their  physical  condition 
must  be  improved  before  they  can  be  susceptible  of  education. 
I  hear  that  the  Roman  Catholics  are  increasing  fast  amongst 
us :  Lord  Shrewsbury  and  other  wealthy  Catholics  are  devot- 
ing their  whole  incomes  to  the  cause,  while  the  tremendous 
influx  of  Irish  laborers  into  Lancashire  and  the  west  of  Scot- 
land is  tainting  the  whole  population  with  a  worse  than  bar- 
barian element  You  have  heard  also,  I  doubt  not,  of  the 
Trades'  Unions,  a  fearful  engine  of  mischief,  ready  to  riot  or 
to  assassinate,  with  all  the  wickedness  that  has  in  all  ages  and 
in  all  countries  characterized  associations  not  recognized  by 
the  law,  —  the  iraipuu  of  Athens,  the  clubs  of  Paris ;  and  I 

see  no  counteracting  power 

I  shall  look  forward  with  the  greatest  interest  to  your 
"  Kirchen-und-Haus  Buch ; "  I  never  cease  to  feel  the  benefit 
which  I  have  derived  from  your  letter  to  Dr.  Knott ;  the  view 
there  contained  of  Christian  Worship  and  of  Christian  Sacri- 
fice as  the  consummation  of  that  worship  is  to  my  mind 
quite  perfect.  What  would  I  give  to  see  our  Liturgy  amended 
on  that  model !  But  our  Bishops  cry,  "  Touch  not,  meddle 
not,"  till  indeed  it  will  be  too  late  to  do  either.  I  have  been 
much  delighted  with  two  American  works  which  have  had  a 
large  circulation  in  England ;  "  The  Young  Christian,"  and 
"The  Corner-Stone,"  by  a  New-Englander,  Jacob  Abbott 
They  are  very  original  and  powerful,  and  the  American  illus- 
trations, whether  borrowed  from  the  scenery  or  the  manners 
of  the  people,  are  very  striking.  And  I  hear,  both  from 
India  and  the  Mediterranean,  the  most  delightful  accounts 
of  the  zeal  and  resources  of  the  American  missionaries,  that 
none  are  doing  so  much  in  the  cause  of  Christ  as  they  are. 
They  will  take  our  place  in  the  world,  I  think  not  unworthily, 
though  with  far  less  advantages  in  many  respects,  than  those 
which  we  have  so  fatally  wasted.  It  is  a  contrast  most  deeply 
humiliating  to  compare  what  we  might  have  been  with  what 
we  are,  with  almost  Israel's  privileges,  and  with  all  Israel's 
abuse  of  them.  I  could  write  on  without  limit,  if  my  time 
were  as  unlimited  as  my  inclinations ;  it  is  vain  to  say  what 
I  would  give  to  talk  with  you  on  a  great  many  points,  though 
your  letters  have  done  more  than  I  should  have  thought  pos- 
sible towards  enabling  me  in  a  manner  to  talk  with  you.  I 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  343 

feel  no  doubt  of  our  agreement ;  indeed  it  would  make  me 
very  unhappy  to  doubt  it,  for  I  am  sure  our  principles  are  the 
same,  and  they  ought  to  lead  to  the  same  conclusions.  And 
so  I  think  they  do.  God  bless  you,  my  dear  friend;  I  do 
trust  to  see  you  again  ere  very  long. 

LXXXV.      TO    AN    OLD    PUPIL.     (A.) 

Rugby,  October  29,  1834. 

I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  letter ;  I  need  not  tell  you 
that  it  greatly  interested  me,  at  the  same  time  that  it  also  in 
some  respects  has  pained  me.  I  do  grieve  that  you  do  not 
enjoy  Oxford ;  it  is  not,  as  you  well  know,  that  I  admire  the 
present  tone  of  the  majority  of  its  members,  or  greatly  re- 
spect their  judgment,  still  there  is  much  that  is  noble  and 
good  about  the  place,  and  you,  I  should  have  hoped,  might 
have  benefited  by  the  good,  and  escaped  the  folly.  If  you 
have  got  your  views  for  your  course  of  life  into  a  definite 
shape,  so  as  to  see  your  way  clear  before  you,  and  this  course 
is  wholly  at  variance  with  the  studies  of  a  University,  then 
there  is  nothing  to  be  said,  except  that  I  am  sorry  and  sur- 
prised, and  should  be  very  anxious  to  learn  what  your  views 
are.  But  if  you  look  forward  to  any  of  what  are  called  the 
learned  professions,  and  wish  still  to  carry  on  the  studies  of  a 
well-educated  man,  depend  upon  it  that  you  are  in  the  right 
place  where  you  are,  and  have  greater  means  within  your 
reach  there,  than  you  can  readily  obtain  elsewhere.  Univer- 
sity distinctions  are  a  great  starting-point  in  life ;  they  intro- 
duce a  man  well,  nay,  they  even  add  to  his  influence  after- 
wards. At  this  moment,  when  I  write  what  is  against  the 
common  opinion  of  people  at  Oxford,  they  would  be  too  happy 
to  say,  that  I  objected  to  their  system,  because  I  had  not  tried 
it,  or  had  not  succeeded  in  it.  Consider  that  a  young  man 
has  no  means  of  becoming  independent  of  the  society  about 
him.  If  you  wish  to  exercise  influence  hereafter,  begin  by 
distinguishing  yourself  in  the  regular  way,  not  by  seeming  to 
prefer  a  separate  way  of  your  own.  It  is  not  the  natural  order 
of  things,  nor,  I  think,  the  sound  one.  I  knew  a  man  at 
Oxford  sixteen  years  ago,  very  clever,  but  one  who  railed 
against  the  place  and  its  institutions,  and  would  not  read  for 
a  class.  And  this  man,  I  am  told,  is  now  a  zealous  Conserva- 
tive, and  writes  in  the  British  Magazine. 

As  to  your  disappointment  in  society,  I  really  am  afraid  to 


344  TIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

touch  on  the  subject  without  clearer  knowledge.  But  you 
should,  I  am  sure,  make  an  effort  to  speak  out,  as  I  am  really 
grateful  for  your  having  written  out  to  me.  Reserve  and  fear 
of  committing  one's  self  are,  beyond  a  certain  point,  positive 
evils ;  a  man  had  better  expose  himself  half-a-dozen  times, 
than  be  shut  up  always ;  and  after  all,  it  is  not  exposing 
yourself,  for  no  one  can  help  valuing  and  loving  what  seems 
an  abandonment  to  feelings  of  sympathy,  especially  when  from 
the  character  of  him  who  thus  opens  his  heart,  the  effort  is 
known  to  be  considerable.  I  am  afraid  that  I  may  be  writing 
at  random ;  only  believe  me  that  I  feel  very  deeply  interested 
about  you,  and  perhaps  have  more  sympathy  with  your  case, 
than  many  a  younger  man  ;  for  the  circumstances  of  my  life 
have  kept  me  young  in  feelings,  and  the  period  of  twenty 
years  ago  is  as  vividly  present  to  my  mind,  as  though  it  were 
a  thing  of  yesterday. 

LXXXVI.      TO    T.    F.   ELLIS,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  November  21, 1834. 

I  was  very  glad  to  see  your  handwriting  once  again,  and 
shall  be  very  ready  to  answer  your  question  to  the  best  of  my 
power,  although  I  am  well  aware  of  its  difficulty.  It  so 
happens  that  I  have  said  something  on  this  very  subject  hi 
the  Introduction  to  the  new  volume  of  my  Sermons,  which  is 
just  published,  so  that  it  has  been  much  in  my  thoughts 
lately,  though  I  am  afraid  it  is  easier  here,  as  in  other  things, 
to  point  out  what  is  of  no  use,  than  to  recommend  what  is. 

The  preparation  for  ordination,  so  far  as  passing  the 
Bishop's  examination  is  concerned,  must  vary  according  to  the 
notions  of  the  different  Bishops,  gome  requiring  one  thing, 
and  some  another.  I  like  no  book  on  the  Articles  altogether, 
but  Hey's  Divinity  Lectures  at  Cambridge  seem  to  me  the 
best  and  fairest  of  any  that  I  know  of. 

But  with  regard  to  the  much  higher  question,  "  What  line 
of  study  is  to  be  recommended  for  a  clergyman  ?  "  my  own  no- 
tions are  very  decided,  though  I  am  afraid  they  are  somewhat 
singular.  A  clergyman's  profession  is  the  knowledge  and 
practice  of  Christianity,  with  no  more  particular  profession  to 
distract  his  attention  from  it.  While  all  men,  therefore, 
should  study  the  Scriptures,  he  should  study  them  thoroughly : 
because  from  them  only  is  the  knowledge  of  Christianity  to  be 
obtained.  And  they  are  to  be  studied  with  the  help  of  philo- 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  345 

logical  works  and  antiquarian,  not  of  dogmatical  theology. 
But  then  for  the  application  of  the  Scriptures,  for  preach- 
ing, &c.,  a  man  requires,  first,  the  general  cultivation  of  his 
mind,  by  constantly  reading  the  works  of  the  very  greatest 
writers,  philosophers,  orators,  and  poets  ;  and,  next,  an  under- 
standing of  the  actual  state  of  society  —  of  our  own  and  of 
general  history,  as  affecting  and  explaining  the  existing  differ- 
ences amongst  us,  both  social  and  religious,  —  and  of  political 
economy,  as  teaching  him  how  to  deal  with  the  poor,  and  how 
to  remove  many  of  the  natural  delusions  which  embitter  their 
minds  against  the  actual  frame  of  society.  Further,  I  should 
advise  a  constant  use  of  the  biography  of  good  men ;  their 
inward  feelings,  prayers,  &c.,  and  of  devotional  and  practical 
works,  like  Taylor's  Holy  Living,  Doddridge's  Rise  and  Pro- 
gress of  Religion  in  the  Soul,  &c.,  &c.  About  Ecclesiastical 
History,  there  is  a  great  difficulty.  I  do  not  know  Wadding- 
ton's  book  well,  but  the  common  histories,  Mosheim,  Milner, 
Dupin,  &c.,  are  all  bad ;  so  is  Fleury,  except  the  Disserta- 
tions prefixed  to  several  of  his  volumes,  and  which  ought  to 
be  published  separately.  For  our  own  Church  again,  the 
truth  lies  in  a  well ;  Strype,  with  all  his  accuracy,  is  so  weak 
and  so  totally  destitute  of  all  sound  views  of  government,  that 
it  is  positively  injurious  to  a  man's  understanding  to  be  long 
engaged  in  so  bad  an  atmosphere.  Burnet  is  much  better  in 
every  way,  yet  he  is  not  a  great  man ;  and  I  suppose  that 
the  Catholic  and  Puritan  writers  are  as  bad  or  worse.  As 
commentators  on  the  Scriptures,  I  should  recommend  Light- 
foot  and  Grotius ;  the  former,  from  his  great  Rabbinical 
learning,  is  often  a  most  admirable  illustrator  of  allusions  and 
obscure  passages  in  both  the  Old  and  New  Testament ;  the 
latter,  alike  learned  and  able  and  honest,  is  always  worth 
reading.  But  I  like  Pole's  Synopsis  Criticorum  altogether, 
and  the  fairness  of  the  collection  is  admirable.  For  Hebrew, 
Gesenius's  Lexicon  and  Stuart's  Grammar  are  recommended 
to  me,  but  I  cannot  judge  of  them  myself.  Schleusner's 
well-known  Lexicons  for  the  Septuagint  and  New  Testament 
are  exceedingly  valuable  as  an  index  verborum,  but  his  inter- 
pretations are  not  to  be  relied  on,  and  he  did  not  belong  to 
the  really  great  school  of  German  philology 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

LXXXVII.      *TO    H.    HIGHTON,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  November  26,  1834. 

I  have  not  time  to  send  you  a  regular  letter  in  answer,  but 
you  wish  to  hear  my  opinion  about  the  Rugby  Magazine  be- 
fore Lake  leaves  Oxford.  I  told  him  that  what  I  wanted  to 
know,  was,  in  whose  hands  the  conduct  of  the  work  would  be 
placed.  Everything  depends  on  this ;  and  as,  on  the  one 
hand,  if  the  Editors  are  discreet  and  inexorable  in  rejecting 
trash,  I  should  be  delighted  to  have  such  a  work  established, 
so,  on  the  other  hand,  if  they  do  admit  trash,  or  worse  still, 
anything  like  local  or  personal  scandal  or  gossip,  the  Maga- 
zine would  be  a  serious  disgrace  to  us  alL  And  I  think  men 
owe  it  to  the  name  of  a  school  not  to  risk  it  lightly,  as  of 
course  a  Magazine  called  by  the  name  of  "  Rugby "  would 
risk  it.  Again,  I  should  most  deprecate  it,  if  it  were  political, 
for  many  reasons  which  you  can-  easily  conceive  yourself.  I 
do  not  wish  to  encourage  the  false  notion  of  my  making  or 
trying  to  make  the  school  political.  This  would  be  done  were 
the  Magazine  liberal :  if  otherwise,  I  should  regret  it  on  other 
grounds.  If  the  Editors  are  good,  and  the  plan  well  laid 
down  and  steadily  kept  to,  I  shall  think  the  Magazine  a  most 
excellent  thing,  both  for  the  credit  of  the  school,  and  for  its 
real  benefit  Only  remember  that  the  result  of  such  an 
attempt  cannot  be  neutral ;  it  must  either  do  us  great  good  or 
great  harm. 

LXXXVIII.       TO    REV.    J.    HEARN. 

Fox  How,  December  81,  1884. 

It  delights  me  to  find  that  so  good  a  man  as  Mr. 

H.  thinks  very  well  of  the  new  Poor  Law,  and  anticipates 
very  favorable  results  from  it,  but  I  cannot  think  that  this  or 
any  other  single  measure  can  do  much  towards  the  cure  of 
evils  so  complicated.  I  groan  over  the  divisions  of  the 
Church,  of  all  our  evils  I  think  the  greatest  —  of  Christ's 
Church  I  mean,  —  that  men  should  call  themselves  Roman 
Catholics,  Church  of  England  men,  Baptists,  Quakers,  all 
sorts  of  various  appellations,  forgetting  that  only  glorious  name 
of  CHRISTIAN,  which  is  common  to  all,  and  a  true  bond  of 
union.  I  begin  now  to  think  that  things  must  be  worse  before 
they  are  better,  and  that  nothing  but  some  great  pressure 
from  without  will  make  Christians  cast  away  their  idols  of 


LIFE   OF    DR.  ARNOLD.  347 

Sectarianism ;    the   worst   and    most    mischievous   by  which 
Christ's  Church  has  ever  been  plagued. 

^.XXXIX.       TO    MR.    JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Fox  How,  January  24,  1835. 

I  do  not  know  when  I  have  been  so  much  delighted  as  by 
a  paragraph  in  the  Globe  of  this  morning,  which  announced 
your  elevation  to  the  Bench.  Your  late  letters,  while  they  in 
some 'measure  prepared  me  for  it,  have  made  me  still  more 
rejoice  in  it,  because  they  told  me  how  acceptable  it  would  be 
to  yourself.  I  do  heartily  and  entirely  rejoice  at  it,  on  public 
grounds  no  less  than  on  private  ;  as  an  appointment  honorable 
to  the  Government,  beneficial  to  the  public  service,  and  hon- 
orable and  desirable  for  yourself;  and  I  have  some  selfish 
pleasure  about  it  also,  inasmuch  as  I  hope  that  I  shall  have 
some  better  chance  of  seeing  you  now  than  I  have  had  hither- 
to, either  in  Warwickshire  or  in  Westmoreland.  For  myself, 
when  I  am  here  in  this  perfection  of  beauty,  with  the  place 
just  coming  into  shape,  and  the  young  plantations  naturally 
leading  one  to  anticipate  the  future,  I  am  inclined  to  feel 
nothing  but  joy  that  the  late  change  of  Government  has  de- 
stroyed all  chance  of  my  being  ever  called  away  from  West- 
moreland. At  least  I  can  say  this,  that  I  should  only  have 
valued  a  Bishopric  as  giving  me  some  prospect  of  effecting 
that  Church  Reform  which  I  so  earnestly  long  for,  —  the 
commencement  of  an  union  with  all  Christians,  and  of  a  true 
Church  government  as  distinguished  from  a  Clergy  govern- 
ment, or  from  none  at  all.  For  this  I  would  sacrifice  any- 
thing ;  but  as  for  a  Bishopric  on  the  actual  system,  and  with 
no  chance  of  mending  it,  it  would  only  make  me  feel  more 
strongly  than  I  do  at  present  the  fxditrrrjv  odvvrjv  jroXXa  <f>pove- 
ovra,  (ir)8evbs  Kpareetv. 

Wordsworth  is  very  well ;  postponing  his  new  volume  of 
poems  till  the  political  ferment  is  somewhat  abated.  "  At  ille 
labitur  et  labetur,"  so  far  as  I  can  foresee,  notwithstanding 
what  the  Tories  have  gained  at  the  late  elections. 

Have  you  seen  your  uncle's  "  Letters  on  Inspiration," 
which  I  believe  are  to  be  published  ?  They  are  well  fitted  to 
break  ground  in  the  approaches  to  that  momentous  question 
which  involves  in  it  so  great  a  shock  to  existing  notions  ;  the 
greatest,  probably,  that  has  ever  been  given  since  the  discov- 
ery of  the  falsehood  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Pope's  infallibility. 


348  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

Yet  it  must  come,  and  will  end,  in  spite  of  the  fears  and 
clamors  of  the  weak  and  bigoted,  in  the  higher  exalting  and 
more  sure  establishing  of  Christian  truth. 

XC.      TO    REV   JULIUS    HARE. 

Fox  How,  January  26,  1835. 

I  cordially  enter  into  your  views  about  a  Theological  Re- 
view, and  I  think  the  only  difficulty  would  be  to  find  an 
Editor ;  I  do  not  think  that  Whately  would  have  time  to 
write,  but  I  can  ask  him  ;  and  undoubtedly  he  would  approve 
of  the  scheme.  Hampden  occurs  to  me  as  a  more  likely  man 
to  join  such  a  thing  than  Pusey,  and  I  think  I  know  one  or 
two  of  the  Younger  Masters  of  Arts  who  would  be  very  use- 
ful. My  notion  of  the  main  objects  of  the  work  would  be 
this ;  1st  To  give  really  fair  accounts  and  analyses  of  the 
works  of  the  early  Christian  Writers ;  giving  also,  so  far  as 
possible,  a  correct  view  of  the  critical  questions  relating  to 
them,  as  to  their  genuineness,  and  the  more  or  less  corrupted 
state  of  the  text.  2d.  To  make  some  beginnings  of  Biblical 
Criticism,  which  as  far  as  relates  to  the  Old  Testament,  is  in 
England  almost  non-existent.  3d.  To  illustrate  in  a  really 
impartial  spirit,  with  no  object  but  the  advancement  of  the 
Church  of  Christ,  and  the  welfare  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
England,  the  rise  and  progress  of  Dissent ;  to  show  what 
Christ's  Church  and  this  nation  have  owed  to  the  Establish- 
ment and  to  the  Dissenters ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  what 
injury  they  have  received  from  each ;  with  a  view  of  pro- 
moting a  real  union  between  them.  These  are  matters  par- 
ticular, but  all  bearing  upon  the  great  philosophical  and 
Christian  truth,  which  seems  to  me  the  very  truth  of 
truths,  that  Christian  unity  and  the  perfection  of  Christ's 
Church  are  independent  of  theological  Articles  of  opinion ; 
consisting  in  a  certain  moral  state  and  moral  and  religious 
affections,  which  have  existed  in  good  Christians  of  all  ages 
and  all  communions,  along  with  an  infinitely-varying  propor- 
tion of  .truth  and  error  ;  that  thus  Christ's  Church  has  stood 
on  a  rock  and  never  failed ;  yet  has  always  been  marred  with 
much  of  intellectual  error,  and  also  of  practical  resulting  from 
the  intellectual ;  that  to  talk  of  Popery  as  the  great  Apostasy, 
and  to  look  for  Christ's  Church  only  amongst  the  remnant  of 
the  Vaudois,  is  as  absurd  as  to  look  to  what  is  called  the 
Primitive  Church  or  the  Fathers  for  pure  models  of  faith  in 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  349 

the  sense  of  opinion  or  of  government ;  that  Ignatius  and 
Innocent  III.  are  to  be  held  as  men  of  the  same  stamp,  — 
zealous  and  earnest  Christians  both  of  them,  but  both  of  them 
overbearing  and  fond  of  power  ;  the  one  advancing  the  power 
of  Bishops,  the  other  that  of  the  Pope,  with  equal  honesty,  — 
it  may  be,  for  their  respective  times,  with  equal  benefit, — 
but  with  as  little  claim  the  one  as  the  other  to  be  an  authority 
for  Christians,  and  with  equally  little  impartial  perception  of 
universal  truth.  But  then  for  the  Editor  ;  if  he  must  live  in 
London  or  in  the  Universities,  I  cannot  think  of  the  man 

XCI.       TO    KEV.    DR.    LONGLEY. 

Fox  How,  January  28,  1835. 

I  suppose,  as  you  have  an  Easter  vacation,  that  you  have 
by  this  time  returned  or  are  returning  to  Harrow.  Next 
week  we  shall  be  also  beginning  work  at  Rugby,  with  the 
prospect  of  one-and-twenty  weeks  before  us ;  —  too  long  a 
period,  I  think,  either  for  boys  or  masters.  In  the  mean  time 
we  have  been  here  for  nearly  six  weeks,  enjoying  ourselves 
as  much  as  possible,  though  we  have  had  much  more  snow,  I 
imagine,  than  you  have  had  in  the  south.  But  we  have  had 
a  large  and  cheerful  party  within  doors,  and  sufficient  variety 
of  weather  to  allow  of  a  great  deal  of  enjoyment  of  scenery ; 
besides  the  perpetual  beauty  and  interest  of  this  particular 
place  and  the  delight  of  watching  the  progress  of  all  our  im- 
provements. We  have  done,  however,  at  last,  with  workmen, 
and  have  now  only  to  wait  for  Nature's  work  in  bringing  on 
our  shrubs  and  trees  to  their  maturity ;  though  many  people 
tell  me  that  every  additional  tree  will  rather  injure  the  beauty 
of  this  place  than  improve  it. 

I  have  tried  the  experiment  which  I  mentioned  to  you 
about  the  Fifth  Form  with  some  modifications.  I  have  not 
given  the  Fifth  the  power  of  fagging,  but  by  reducing  their 
number  to  about  three  or  four  and  twenty,  we  have  made 
them  much  more  respectable  both  'in  conduct  and  scholar- 
ship, and  more  like  boys  at  the  head  of  the  school.  I  do  not 
think  that  we  have  at  present  a  large  proportion  of  clever 
boys  at  Rugby,  and  there  are  many  great  evils  which  I  have 
to  contend  with,  more  than  are  generally  known.  I  think, 
also,  that  we  are  now  beginning  to  outlive  that  desire  of 
novelty  which  made  so  many  people  send  their  sons  to  Rugby 
when  I  fir^t  went  there.  I  knew  that  that  feeling  would  ebb, 

VOL.  i.  30 


350  LIFE  OP  DR.   ARNOLD. 

and  therefore  got  the  school  limited;  or  else  as  the  flood 
would  have  risen  higher,  so  its  ebb  would  have  been  more 
marked ;  but  as  it  was,  the  limit  was  set  too  high,  and  I  do 
not  think  that  we  shall  keep  up  to  it,  especially  as  other  found- 
ation schools  are  every  day  becoming  reformed,  and  there- 
fore entering  into  competition  with  us.  But  I  say  this  without 
the  least  uneasiness,  for  the  school  is  really  mending  in  itself; 
and  its  credit  at  the  Universities  increasing  rather  than  falling 
off;  and,  so  long  as  this  is  the  case,  I  shall  be  perfectly  satis- 
fied ;  if  we  were  really  to  go  down  hi  efficiency,  either  from  my 
fault,  or  from  faults  which  I  could  not  remedy,  I  should  soon 
establish  myself  at  f"ox  How. 

I  wrote  to  Hawtrey  to  congratulate  him  on  his  appoint- 
ment, and  I  took  that  opportunity  to  ask  him  what  he  thought 
of  the  expediency  of  getting  up  good  grammars,  both  Latin 
and  Greek,  which,  being  used  in  all  or  most  of  the  great  public 
schools,  would  so  become,  in  fact,  the  national  grammars.  I 
should  propose  to  adopt  something  of  the  plan  followed  by 
our  translators  of  the  Bible ;  i.  e.  that  a  certain  portion  of 
each  grammar  should  be  assigned  to  the  master  or  masters  of 
each  of  the  great  schools  ;  e.  g.  the  accidence  to  one,  syntax 
to  another,  prosody  to  a  third ;  or  probably  with  greater  sub- 
divisions ;  that  then  the  parts  so  drawn  up  should  be  sub- 
mitted to  the  revision  of  the  other  schools,  and  the  whole 
thus  brought  into  shape.  Hawtrey  exclaims  strongly  against 
the  faults  of  the  Eton  grammars,  and  I  am  not  satisfied  with 
Matthias,  which  seems  to  me  too  difficult,  and  almost  impossi- 
ble to  be  learnt  by  heart.  Hawtrey  said  he  would  write  to 
me  again,  when  he  found  himself  more  settled,  and  I  have  not 
heard  from  him  since.  I  should  like  to  know  what  your  sen- 
timents are  about  it ;  it  would  be  ftaXurra  KO.T  ev^"  to  have  a 
common  grammar  jointly  concocted ;  but  if  I  cannot  get  other 
men  to  join  me,  I  think  we  must  try  our  hands  on  one  for  our 
own  use  at  Rugby ;  I  shall  not,  however,  think  of  this  till  all 
hope  of  something  better  *  is  out  of  the  question. 

It  seems  to  me  that  we*  have  not  enough  of  co-operation  in 
our  system  of  public  education,  including  both  the  great  schools 
and  Universities.  I  do  not  like  the  centralizing  plan  of  com- 
pulsory uniformity  under  the  government ;  but  I  do  not  see 
why  we  should  all  be  acting  without  the  least  reference  to  one 


*  The  necessity  for  such  a  plan  was  eventually  obviated  by  his  adoptioa 
of  the  Rav.  C.  Wordsworth's  Greek  Grammar. 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  351 

another.  Something  of  this  kind  is  wanted,  particularly  I 
think  with  regard  to  expulsion.  Under  actual  circumstances 
it  is  often  no  penalty  at  all  in  reality,  while  it  is  consid- 
ered ignorantly  to  be  the  excess  of  severity,  and  the  rum  of  a 
boy's  prospects.  And  until  the  Universities  have  an  exami- 
nation upon  admission  as  a  University,  not  a  college  regula- 
tion, the  standard  of  the  college  lecture-rooms  will  be  so  low, 
that  a  young  man  going  from  the  top  of  a  public  school  will 
be  nearly  losing  his  time,  and  tempted  to  go  back  in  his 
scholarship  by  attending  them.  This  is  an  old  grievance  at 
Oxford,  as  I  can  bear  witness,  when  I  myself  was  an  under- 
graduate just  come  from  Winchester. 

XCII.     TO    REV.  F.  C.  BLACKSTONE. 

Fox  How,  January  29,  1835. 

"We  have  now  been  here  nearly  six  weeks,  enjoying  this 
country  to  the  full,  in  spite  of  the  snow,  of  which,  we  have 
had  more  than  our  usual  portion.  Now,  however,  it  is  all 
gone,  and  the  spring  lights  and  gentle  airs  of  the  last  few 
days  have  made  the  beauty  of  the  scenery  at  its  very  highest. 
We  have  so  large  a  party  in  the  house,  that  we  are  very  inde- 
pendent of  any  other  society ;  my  wife's  two  sisters  and  one 
of  my  nieces,  besides  one  of  our  Sixth  Form  at  Rugby,  in 
addition  to  our  own  children.  I  was  much  annoyed  at  being 
called  away  into  Warwickshire  to  vote  at  the  election,  —  a 
long  and  hurried  and  expensive  journey,  with  no  very  great 
interest  in  the  contest,  only  as  having  a  vote,  I  thought  it 
right  to  go,  and  deliver  my  testimony.  We  were  at  one  time 
likely  to  have  a  contest  in  Westmoreland,  but  that  blew  over. 
I  wish  that  in  thinking  of  you  with  a  pupil,  I  could  think  of 
you  as  enjoying  the  employment,  whereas  I  am  afraid  you 
will  feel  it  to  be  a  burden.  It  is,  perhaps,  too  exclusively  my 
business  at  Rugby ;  at  least  I  fancy  that  I  should  be  glad  to 
have  a  little  more  time  for  other  things ;  but  I  have  not 
yet  learnt  to  alter  my  feelings  of  intense  interest  in  the  occu- 
pation. I  feel,  perhaps,  the  more  interest  in  it,  because  I 
seem  to  find  it  more  and  more  hopeless  to  get  men  to  think 
and  inquire  freely  and  fairly,  after  they  have  once  taken  their 
side  in  life.  The  only  hope  is  with  the  young,  if  by  any 
means  they  can  be  led  to  think  for  themselves  without  follow- 
ing a  party,  and  to  love  what  is  good  and  true,  let  them  find 
it  where  they  will 


852  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

The  Church  question  remains  more  uncertain  than  ever; 
we  have  got  a  respite,  I  trust,  from  the  Jew  Bill  for  some 
time  ;  but  in  other  matters,  I  fear,  Reform,  according  to  my 
views,  is  as  far  off  as  ever ;  I  care  not  in  the  least  about  the 
pluralities  and  equalizing  revenues  ;  let  us  have  a  real  Church 
Government  and  not  a  pretended  one  ;  and  this  government 
vested  in  the  Church,  and  not  in  the  clergy,  and  we  may 
have  hopes  yet.  But  I  dread  above  all  things  the  notion 
either  of  the  convocation  or  of  any  convocation,  in  which  the 
Laity  had  not  at  least  an  equal  voice.  As  for  the  Irish 
Church,  that  I  think  will  baffle  any  man's  wits  to  settle  as  it 
should  be  settled. 

XCHI.    TO    CHEVALIER  BTJNSEN. 

Rugby,  February  10, 1835. 

I  know  not  how  adequately  to  answer  your  last  delightful 
and  most  kind  letter,  so  interesting  to  me  in  all  its  parts,  so 
full  of  matter  for  the  expression  of  so  many  thoughts  and  so 
many  feelings.  I  think  you  can  hardly  tell,  how  I  prize 
such  true  sympathy  of  heart  and  mind  as  I  am  sure  to  find 
in  your  letters ;  because  I  hope  and  believe  that  it  is  not  so 

rare  to  you  as  it  is  to  me I  find  in  you  that  exact 

combination  of  tastes,  which  I  have  in  myself,  for  philological, 
historical,  and  philosophical  pursuits,  centering  in  moral  and 
spiritual  truths ;  the  exact  Greek  uoXtrwcr/,  if  we  understand, 
with  St.  Paul,  where  the  a<m>  of  our  iroXirfia  is  to  be  sought 
for.  Your  Hymn  Book  reached  me  before  the  holidays,  and 
I  fed  upon  it  with  unceasing  delight  in  Westmoreland.  It  is 
indeed  a  treasure ;  and  how  I  delighted  in  recognizing  the 
principles  of  the  Letter  to  Dr.  Knott  in  the  first  Appendix  to 
the  volume.  As  to  the  Hymns,  I  have  not  yet  read  a  single 
one,  which  I  have  not  thought  good.  I  should  like  to  know 
some  of  your  favorites ;  for  myself,  I  am  especially  fond  of 
the  Hymn  24,  "  Seele,  du  musst  munter  werden,"  &c. ;  of 
G97,  "  Der  Mond  ist  aufgegangen ;  "  of  824,  "  O  liebe  Seele, 
konntst  du  werden ; "  of  622,  "  Erhebt  euch  frohe  Jubellie- 
der;"  of  839,  "O  Ewigkeit!  O  Ewigkeit;"  and  of  933  and 
934.  I  have  tried  to  translate  some  of  them,  but  have  been 
sadly  disappointed  with  my  own  attempts.  But  I  must  give 
you  one  or  two  stanzas  of  the  Morning  Hymn,  as  a  token  of 
my  love  to  it,  and  to  show  you  also,  for  your  satisfaction, 
how  much  our  language  is  inferior  to  yours  in  flexibility  and 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  353 

power,  by  having  lost  so  much  of  its  native  character,  and 
become  such  a  jumble  of  French  and  Latin  exotics  with  the 
original  Saxon I  shall  send  you,  almost  immedi- 
ately, the  third  volume  of  Thucydides,  and  the  third  volume 
of  Sermons.  The  Appendix  to  the  latter  is  directed  against 
an  error,  which  is  deeply  mischievous  in  our  Church,  by  pre- 
senting so  great  an  obstacle  to  Christian  union,  as  Avell  as  to 
Christian  Church  Reform.  Still,  as  in  Catholic  countries, 
"  the  Church,"  with  us,  means,  in  many  persons'  mouths,  and 
constantly  in  Parliament,  only  "  the  Clergy ; "  and  this  feel- 
ing operates,  of  course,  both  to  produce  superstition  and  pro- 
faneness,  in  both  respects  exactly  opposed  to  Christianity. 
Church  Reform,  in  any  high  sense  of  the  word,  we  shall  not 
have  ;  the  High-Church  party  idolize  things  as  they  are  ;  the 
Evangelicals  idolize  the  early  Reformers ;  their  notion  at  the 
best  would  be  to  carry  into  full  effect  the  intentions  of  Cran- 
mer  and  Ridley  ;  neither  party  are  prepared  to  acknowledge 
that  there  is  much  more  to  be  done  than  this ;  and  that 
Popery  and  narrow  dogmatical  intolerance  tainted  the  Church 
as  early  as  the  days  of  Ignatius ;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
Christ's  true  Church  lived  through  the  worst  of  times,  and  is 
not  to  be  confined  to  the  small  congregations  of  the  Vaudois. 
The  state  of  parties  in  England,  and  that  ignorance  of  and 
indifference  to  general  principles,  which  is  so  characteristic  of 
Englishmen,  is  enough  to  break  one's  heart.  I  do  not  think 
that  you  do  justice  to  the  late  government ;  you  must  com- 
pare them  not  with  the  government  of  a  perfect  Common- 
wealth, but  with  that  worse  than  "  Faex  Romuli,"  the  Tory 
system  that  preceded  them,  and  which  is  now  threatening  us 

again  under  a  new  aspect It  strikes  me  that  a  noble 

work  might  be  written  on  the  Philosophy  of  Parties  and  Rev- 
olutions, showing  what  are  the  essential  points  of  division 
in  all  civil  contests,  and  what  are  but  accidents.  For  the 
want  of  this,  history  as  a  collection  of  facts  is  of  no  use  at 
all  to  many  persons ;  they  mistake  essential  resemblances, 
and  dwell  upon  accidental  differences,  especially  when  those 
accidental  differences  are  in  themselves  matters  of  great  im- 
portance, such  as  differences  in  religion,  or,  more  or  less,  of 
civil  liberty  and  equality.  Whereas  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
real  parties  in  human  nature  are  the  Conservatives  and  the 
Advancers  ;  those  who  look  to  the  past  or  present,  and  those 
who  look  to  the  future,  whether  knowingly  and  deliberately, 
or  by  an  instinct  of  their  nature,  indolent  in  one  case  and 
30*  \v 


854  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

restless  in  the  other,  which  they  themselves  do  not  analyze. 
Thus  Conservatism  may  sometimes  be  ultra  democracy,  (see 
Cleon's  speech  in  Thucydides,  III.,)  sometimes  aristocracy, 
as  in  the  civil  wars  of  Rome,  or  in  the  English  constitution 
now ;  and  the  Advance  may  be  sometimes  despotism,  some- 
times aristocracy,  but  always  keeping  its  essential  character 
of  advance,  of  taking  off  bonds,  removing  prejudices,  altering 
what  is  existing.  The  Advance  in  its  perfect  form  is  Chris- 
tianity, and  in  a  corrupted  world  must  always  be  the  true 
principle,  although  it  has  in  many  instances  been  so  clogged 
with  evil  of  various  kinds,  that  the  conservative  principle, 
although  essentially  false  since  man  fell  into  sin,  has  yet 
commended  itself  to  good  men  while  they  looked  on  the  his- 
tory of  mankind  only  partially,  and  did  not  consider  it  as  a 
whole.* 

How  you  astonish  and  shame  me  by  what  you  are 

yourself  continually  effecting  and  proposing  to  effect  amidst 
all  your  official  and  domestic  engagements.  I  do  not  know 
how  you  can  contrive  it,  or  how  your  strength  and  spirits  can 
support  it.  0  how  heartily  do  I  sympathize  in  your  feeling 
as  to  the  union  of  philological,  historical,  and  philosophical  re- 
search, all  to  minister  to  divine  truth  ;  and  how  gladly  would 
I  devote  my  time  and  powers  to  such  pursuits,  did  I  not  feel 
as  much  another  thing  in  your  letter,  that  we  should  abide  in 
that  calling  which  God  has  set  before  us.  And  it  is  delight- 
ful, if  at  any  time  I  may  hope  to  send  out  into  the  world  any 
young  man  willing  and  trained  to  do  Christ's  work,  rich  in 
the  combined  and  indivisible  love  of  truth  and  of  goodness. 

It  is  one  of  my  most  delightful  prospects  to  bring 


*  "  Cobbett  is  an  anti-advance  man  to  the  backbone,  he  is  sometimes 
Jacobin,  sometimes  Conservative,  but  never  liberal;  and  the  same  may  be 
said  of  most  of  the  partv  writers  on  both  sides,  of  which  there  is  a  good  proof 
in  their  joint  abuse  of  the  French  government,  which  is,  I  think,  the  most 
truly  liberal  and  'advancing'  that  exists  in  Europe,  next  perhaps  to  the 
Prussian,  which  is  one  of  the  most  advancing  ever  known."  —  Extract  from 
a  Letter  to  Mr.  Justice  Coleridge  in  the  same  year. 

The  doctrine  alluded  to  in  these  Letters  was  one  to  which  he  often  re- 
curred, arid  which  he  believed  to  be  peculiarly  applicable  to  modern  Europe. 
"A  volume,"  he  said,  "might  be  written  on  those  words  of  Harrington, 
'that  we  are  living  in  the  dregs  of  the  Gothic  empire.'  It  is  that  the 
beginnings  of  tilings  are  bad  —  and  when  they  have  not  been  altered,  you 
may  safely  «ay  that  they  want  altering,  fiut  then  comes  the  question 
whether  our  fate  is  not  fixed,  and  whether  you  could  not  as  well  make  the 
muscles  and  sinews  of  a  full-grown  man  perform  the  feats  of  an  Indian  jug- 
gler; great  changes  require  great  docility,  and  you  can  only  expect  that 
from  perfect  knowledge  or  perfect  ignorance." 


LIFE    OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  355 

my  two  elder  boys,  and  I  hope  their  dear  mother  also,  to  see 
you  and  Mrs.  Bunsen,  whether  it  be  at  Rome  or  at  Berlin.  I 
only  wait  for  the  boys  being  old  enough  to  derive  some  last- 
ing benefit  from  what  they  would  see  and  hear  on  the  Conti- 
nent They  are  too  young  now,  for  the  eldest  is  but  just 
twelve  years  old,  —  the  second  just  eleven.  Your  little  name- 
sake is  the  smallest  creature  of  her  age  that  I  ever  saw,  —  a 
mere  doll  walking  about  the  room  ;  —  but  full  of  life  and  in- 
telligence —  and  the  merriest  of  the  merry. 

I  have  been  trying  to  begin  Hebrew,  but  am  discouraged 
by  my  notions  of  the  uncertainty  of  the  best  knowledge  hith- 
erto gained  about  it.  Do  you  think  it  possible  to  understand 
Hebrew  well,  that  is,  as  we  understand  Greek,  where  the  lan- 
guage is  more  precise  and  more  clear  than  even  our  own 
could  be  ?  Conceive  the  luminous  clearness  of  Demosthenes, 
owing  to  his  perfect  use  of  an  almost  perfect  language,  and 
our  complete  understanding  of  it ;  but  the  interpretation  of  the 
Hebrew  Prophets  *  seems  to  me,  judging  from  the  different 
Commentaries,  to  be  almost  guess-work ;  and  I  doubt  whether 
it  can  ever  be  otherwise.  Then  the  criticism  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, the  dates  of  the  several  books,  their  origin,  &c.,  all 
seem  to  me  undecided,  and  what  Wolf  and  Isiebuhr  have 
done  for  Greece  and  Rome  seems  sadly  wanted  for  Judaea. 

XCIV.       *TO    C.    J.    VAUGHAN,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  February  25,  1835. 

You  must  not  think  that  I  had  forgotten  you,  though  your 
kind  letter  has  remained  so  long  unanswered.  I  was  always 
.Conscious  of  my  debt  to  you,  and  resolved  to  pay  it ;  but 
though  I  can  write  letters  of  business  at  any  time,  yet  it  is 
not  so  with  letters  to  friends,  which  I  neither  like  to  leave 
unfinished  in  the  middle,  nor,  to  say  the  truth,  do  I  always 
feel  equal  to  writing  them,  for  they  require  a  greater  fresh- 
ness and  abstractedness  of  mind  from  other  matters  than  I  am 
always  able  to  command.  I  have  been  greatly  delighted  with 
all  I  have  heard  of  you  since  you  have  been  at  Cambridge ; 
it  is  vexatious  to  me,  however,  that  from  -want  of  familiarity 
with  the  system,  I  cannot  bring  your  life  and  pursuits  there 
?o  vividly  before  my  mind,  as  I  can  those  of  an  under- 

*  This  opinion  was  greatly  modified  by  his  later  study  of  the  Prophets. 
The  general  coincidence  of  two  men  so  different  as  Lowfh  and  Gesenius  in 
their  interpretation  of  Isaiah,  he  used  to  instance  as  a  satisfactory  proof  that 
the  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  could  be  really  ascertained. 


856  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

graduate  in  Oxford ;  otherwise,  to  say  nothing  of  my  personal 
interest  for  individuals,  I  think  that  I  am  as  much  concerned 
about  one  university  as  the  other.  Lake  will  have  told  you, 
I  dare  say,  all  our  vacation  news,  and  probably  all  that  has 
happened  worth  relating  since  our  return  to  Rugby.  In  fact, 
news  of  all  sorts  you  will  be  sure  to  hear  from  your  other 
correspondents  earlier  and  more  fully  than  from  me. 

I  was  obliged  to  you  for  a  hint  in  your  letter  to  Price, 
about  our  reading  more  Greek  poetry,  and  accordingly  we 
have  begun  the  Harrow  "  Musa  Grseca,"  and  are  doing  some 
Pindar.  You  may  be  sure  that  I  wish  to  consult  the  line  of 
reading  at  both  Universities,  so  far  as  this  can  be  done  with- 
out a  system  of  direct  cramming,  or  without  sacrificing  some- 
thing which  I  may  believe  to  be  of  paramount  importance. 
Aristophanes,  however,  I  had  purposely  left  for  Lee  to  do 
with  the  Fifth  Form,  as  it  is  a  book  which  he  had  studied 
well,  and  can  do  much  better  than  I  can. 

I  am  doing  nothing,  but  thinking  of  many  things.  I  for- 
get whether  you  learnt  any  German  here,  but  I  think  it 
would  be  well  worth  your  while  to  learn  it  without  loss  of 
time.  Every  additional  language  gained,  is  like  an  addi- 
tional power,  none  more  so  than  German.  I  have  been  rev- 
elling in  my  friend  Bunsen's  collection  of  hymns,  and  have 
lately  got  a  periodical  work  on  Divinity,  published  by  some 
of  the  best  German  divines,  "  Theologische  Studien  und 
Kritiken."  I  mention  these,  because  they  are  both  so  utterly 
unlike  what  is  called  Rationalism,  and  at  the  same  time  so 
unlike  our  High-Church  or  Evangelical  writings  ;  they  seem 
to  me  to  be  a  most  pure  transcript  of  the  New  Testament, 
combining  in  a  most  extraordinary  degree  the  spirit  of  love 
with  the  spirit  of  wisdom. 

It  is  a  very  hard  thing,  I  suppose,  to  read  at  once  pas- 
sionately and  critically,  by  no  means  to  be  cold,  captious, 
sneering,  or  scoffing ;  to  admire  greatness  and  goodness  with 
an  intense  love  and  veneration,  yet  to  judge  all  things  ;  to  be 
the  slave  neither  of  names  nor  of  parties,  and  to  sacrifice  even 
the  most  beautiful  associations  for  the  sake  of  truth.  I  would 
say,  as  a'  good  general  rule,  never  read  the  works  of  any 
ordinary  man,  except  on  scientific  matters,  or  when  they  con- 
tain simple  matters  of  fact.  Even  on  matters  of  fact,  silly  and 
ignorant  men,  however  honest  and  industrious  in  their  par- 
ticular  subject,  require  to  be  read  with  constant  watchfulness 
and  suspicion ;  whereas  great  men  are  always  instructive, 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  357 

even  amidst  much  of  error  on  particular  points.  In  general, 
however,  I  hold  it  to  be  certain,  that  the  truth  is  to  be  found 
in  the  great  men,  and  the  error  in  the  little  ones. 

XGV.    *TO    A.    P.    STANLEY,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  March  4,  1835. 

I  am  delighted  that  you  like  Oxford,  nor  am  I 

the  least  afraid  of  your  liking  it  too  much.  It  does  not  follow 
because  one  admires  and  loves  the  surpassing  beauty  of  the 
place  and  its  associations,  or  because  one  forms  in  it  the  most 
valuable  and  most  delightful  friendships,  that  therefore  one 
is  to  uphold  its  foolishness,  and  to  try  to  perpetuate  its  faults. 
My  love  for  any  place  or  person,  or  institution,  is  exactly  the 
measure  of  my  desire  to  reform  them  ;  a  doctrine  which  seems 
to  me  as  natural  now,  as  it  seemed  strange  when  I  was  a 
child,  when  I  could  not  make  out  how,  if  my  mother  loved 
me  more  than  strange  children,  she  should  find  fault  with  me 
and  not  with  them.  But  I  do  not  think  this  ought  to  be  a 
difficulty  to  any  one  who  is  more  than  six  years  old.  I  sup- 
pose that  the  reading  necessary  for  the  schools  is  now  so 
great  that  you  can  scarcely  have  time  for  anything  else. 
Your  German  will  be  kept  up  naturally  enough  in  your  mere 
classical  reading,  and  ancient  history  and  philosophy  will  be 
constantly  recalling  modern  events  and  parties  to  your  mind, 
and  improving  in  fact,  in  the  best  way,  your  familiarity  with 
and  understanding  of  them.  But  I  hope  that  you  will  be  at 
Oxford  long  enough  to  have  one  year  at  least  of  reading 
directly  on  the  middle  ages  or  modern  times,  and  of  revel- 
ling in  the  stores  of  the  Oxford  libraries.  I  have  never  lost 
the  benefit  of  what  I  enjoyed  in  this  respect,  though  I  have 
often  cause  to  regret  that  it  is  no  longer  within  my  reach. 

I  do  not  know  why  my  Thucydides  is  not  out ;  I  sent  off 
the  last  corrected  sheet  three  weeks  ago.  I  am  amused  with 
thinking  of  what  will  be  said  of  the  latter  part  of  the  Preface, 
which  is  very  conservative,  insomuch  that  I  am  rather  afraid 
of  being  suspected  of  ratting ;  a  suspicion  which,  notwith- 
standing, would  be  quite  unfounded,  as  you  will  probably 
believe  without  any  more  solemn  assurance  on  my  part.  Nor 
do  I  feel  that  I  am  in  any  greater  danger  of  becoming  a 
Radical,  if  by  that  term  be  meant  one  who  follows  popular 
principles,  as  opposed  to  or  distinct  from  liberal  ones.  But 
iberal  principles  are  more  or  less  popular,  and  more  or 


358  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

less  aristocratical,  according  to  circumstances,  and  thus  in  the 
application  of  precisely  the  same  principles  which  I  held  two 
years  ago,  and  ten  years  ago,  I  should  write  and  act  as  to 

particular  persons   and  parties  somewhat  differently 

In  other  words,  the  late  extraordinary  revolution  has  shown 
the  enormous  strength  of  the  aristocracy  and  of  the  corrupt  and 
low  Tory  party ;  one  sees  clearly  what  hard  blows  they  will  not 
only  stand,  but  require,  and  that  the  fear  of  depressing  them 
too  much  is  chimerical.  A  deeper  fear  is  behind  ;  that,  like 
the  vermin  on  the  jacket  in  Sylla's  apologue,  they  will  stick 
BO  tight  to  the  form  of  the  constitution,  that  the  constitution 
itself  will  at  last  be  thrown  into  the  fire,  and  a  military 

monarchy   succeed But  of  one   thing  I  am  clear, 

that  if  ever  this  constitution  be  destroyed,  it  will  be  only  when 
it  ought  to  be  destroyed  ;  when  evils  long  neglected,  and  good 
long  omitted,  will  have  brought  things  to  such  a  state,  that 
the  constitution  must  fall  to  save  the  commonwealth,  and  the 
Church  of  England  perish  for  the  sake  of  the  Church  of 
Christ.  Search  and  look  whether  you  can  find  that  any  con- 
stitution was  ever  destroyed  from  within  by  factions  or  dis- 
content, without  its  destruction  having  been  either  just 
penally,  or  necessary,  because  it  could  not  any  longer  answer 
its  proper  purposes.  And  this  ripeness  for  destruction  is  the 
sure  consequence  of  Toryism  and  Conservatism,  or  of  that 
base  system  which  joins  the  hand  of  a  Reformer  to  the  heart 
of  a  Tory,  reforms  not  upon  principle,  but  upon  clamor ; 
and  therefore  both  changes  amiss,  and  preserves  amiss,  alike 
blind  and  low-principled  in  what  it  gives  and  what  it  withholds. 
And  therefore  I  would  oppose  to  the  utmost  any  government 
predominantly  Tory,  much  more  one  exclusively  Tory,  and 
most  of  all  a  government,  at  once  exclusively  Tory  in  heart, 
and  in  word  and  action  simulating  reform.  Conceive  the 
Duke  of  Ormond  and  Bolingbroke,  and  Atterbury,  and  Sir 
"W.  Wyndham,  intrusted  with  the  administration  of  the  Act 
of  Settlement.  So  have  I  filled  my  paper ;  but  it  is  idle  to 
write  upon  things  of  this  kind,  as  no  letter  will  hold  all  that 
is  to  be  said,  much  less  answer  objections  on  the  other  side. 
"Write  to  me  when  you  can,  and  tell  me  about  yourself  fully.* 

*  The  latter  part  of  this  letter  was  occasioned  by  a  regret  expressed  at 
his  vote  in  the  Warwickshire  election.  For  the  distinction  between  "  Liberal 
and  Popular  principles,"  see  his  article  in  the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Educst 
lion,  vol.  ix.  p.  281. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  359 

XCVI.      TO    THE    ARCHBISHOP    OP   DUBLIN. 

Rugby,  March  22, 1835. 
I  have  been  thinking  of  what  you   say  as  to  a 


book  on  the  origin  of  Civilization,  and  considering  whether 
I  could  furnish  anything  towards  it.  But  history,  I  think, 
can  furnish  little  to  the  purpose,  because  all  history  properly 
so  called  belongs  to  an  age  of  at  least  partial  civilization ;  and 
the  poetical  or  mythical  traditions,  which  refer  to  the  origin 
of  this  civilization,  cannot  be  made  use  of  to  prove  anything, 
till  their  character  has  undergone  a  more  complete  analysis. 
I  believe  with  you  that  savages  could  never  civilize  them- 
selves, but  barbarians  I  think  might ;  and  there  are  some 
races,  e.  g.  the  Keltic,  the  Teutonic,  and  the  Hellenic,  that 
we  cannot  trace  back  to  a  savage  state,  nor  does  it  appear 
that  they  ever  were  savages.  .With  regard  to  such  races  as 
have  been  found  in  a  savage  state,  if  it  be  admitted  that  all 
mankind  are  originally  one  race,  then  I  should  say  that  they 
must  have  degenerated ;  but,  if  the  physiological  question  be 
not  settled  yet,  and  there  is  any  reason  to  suppose  that  the 
New  Hollander  and  the  Greek  never  had  one  common 
ancestor,  then  you  would  have  the  races  of  mankind  divided 
into  those  improvable  by  themselves,  and  those  improvable 
only  by  others ;  the  first  created  originally  with  such  means 
in  their  possession,  that  out  of  these  they  could  work  indefi- 
nitely their  own  improvement,  the  TTOV  orw  being  in  a  manner 
given  to  them  ;  the  second  without  the  irov  orw,  and  intended 
to  receive  it  in  time,  through  the  instrumentality  of  their 
fellow-creatures.  And  this  would  be  sufficiently  analogous  to 
the  course  of  Providence  in  other  known  cases,  e.  g.  the 
communicating  all  religious  knowledge  to  mankind  through 
the  Jewish  people,  and  all  intellectual  civilization  through 
the  Greeks ;  no  people  having  ever  yet  possessed  that  activity 
of  mind,  and  that  power  of  reflection  and  questioning  of 
things,  which  are  the  marks  of  intellectual  advancement,  with- 
out having  derived  them  mediately  or  immediately  from 
Greece.  I  had  occasion  in  the  winter  to  observe  this  in  a 
Jew,  of  whom  I  took  a  few  lessons  in  Hebrew,  and  who  was 
learned  in  the  writings  of  the  Rabbis,  but  totally  ignorant  of 
all  the  literature  of  the  West,  ancient  and  modern.  He  Avas 
consequently  just  like  a  child,  —  his  mind  being  entirely  with- 
out the  habit  of  criticism  or  analysis,  whether  as  applied  to 
words  or  to  things ;  wholly  ignorant,  for  instance,  of  the 


360  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

analysis  of  language,  whether  grammatical  or  logical ;  or  of 
the  analysis  of  a  narrative  of  facts,  according  to  any  rules  of 
probability  external  or  internal.  I  never  so  felt  the  debt 
which  the  human  race  owes  to  Pythagoras,  or  whoever  it  was 
that  was  the  first  founder  of  Greek  philosophy. 

The   interest  of  present   questions,   involving  as 

they  do  great  and  eternal  principles,  hinders  me  from  fixing 
contentedly  upon  a  work  of  past  history ;  while  the  hopeless- 
ness of  persuading  men,  and  the  inevitable  odium  which  at- 
tends anything  written  on  the  topics  of  the  day,  hinder  me  on 
the  other  hand  from  writing  much  about  the  present  How 
great  this  odium  is,  I  really  could  have  hardly  conceived,  even 
with  all  my  former  experience.  [The  rest  of  the  letter  is 
lost.] 

XCVH.      TO   AN    OLD    PUPIL.       (A.) 

Rugby,  March  30, 1835. 

Just  as  I  have  begun  to  write,  the  clock  has  struck  five, 
which  you  know  announces  the  end  of  Fourth  lesson,  so  that 
I  fear  I  shall  not  make  much  progress  now ;  I  shall  let  the 
Sixth  Form,  however,  have  the  pleasure  of  contemplating  a 
very  beautiful  passage  out  of  Coleridge  for  a  few  minutes 
longer,  while  I  write  on  a  few  lines  to  you.  It  gave  me  great 

pleasure  to  find  that  you  enjoy 's  society  so  much,  and  I 

hope  that  it  makes  Oxford  seem  at  any  rate  more  endurable 

to  you.     I  was  very  much  interested  by  your  story  of '& 

comment  upon  a  little  burst  of  yours  about  Switzerland.  I 
suppose  that  Pococuranteism  (excuse  the  word)  is  much  the 
order  of  the  day  amongst  young  men.  I  observe  symptoms 
of  it  here,  and  am  always  dreading  its  ascendency,  though  we 
have  some  who  struggle  nobly  against  it.  I  believe  that  "  Nil 
admirari,"  in  this  sense  is  the  Devil's  favorite  text;  and  he 
could  not  choose  a  better  to  introduce  his  pupils  into  the  more 
esoteric  parts  of  his  doctrine.  And  therefore  I  have  always 
looked  upon  a  man  infected  with  this  disorder  of  anti-romance, 
as  on  one,  who  has  lost  the  finest  part  of  his  nature,  and  his 
best  protection  against  everything  low  and  foolish.  Such  a 
man  may  well  call  me  mad,  but  his  party  are  not  yet  strong 
enough  to  get  me  fairly  shut  up,  —  and  till  they  are,  I  shall 
take  the  liberty  of  insisting  that  their  tail  is  the  longest,  and 
the  more  boldly  I  assume  this,  the  more  readily  will  the  world 
^believe  me.  I  have  lived  now  for  many  years,  —  indeed,  since 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  361 

I  was  a  very  young  man,  —  in  a  very  entire  indifference  as  to 
the  opinion  of  people,  unless  I  have  reason  to  think  them  good 
and  wise ;  and  I  wish  that  some  of  my  friends  would  share 
this  indifference,  at  least  as  far  as  I  am  concerned.  The  only 
thing  which  gives  me  the  slightest  concern  in  the  attacks  which 
have  been  lately  made  on  me,  is  the  idea  of  their  in  any  de- 
gree disturbing  my  friends.  I  am  afraid  that  is  not  as 

indifferent  as  I  could  wish  either  to  the  attacks  in  newspapers, 
or  to  the  gossip  of  Oxford  about  Rugby,  of  which  last  I  have 
now  had  some  years'  experience,  and  I  should  pay  it  a  very 
undeserved  compliment,  if  I  were  to  set  any  higher  value  on  it 
than  I  do  on  my  friend  Theodore  Hook  and  his  correspondents 
in  John  Bull.  It  is  a  mere  idleness  to  attend  to  this  sort 
of  talking,  and  as  to  trying  to  act  so  as  to  avoid  its  attacks,  — 
a  man  would  have  enough  to  do,  and  would  lead  a  strange 
life,  if  he  were  to  be  shaping  his  conduct  to  propitiate  gossip. 
I  hold  it  also  equally  vain  to  attempt  to  explain  or  to  contra- 
dict any  reports  that  may  be  in  circulation ;  in  order  to  do  so, 
it  would  be  necessary  to  write  a  weekly  despatch  at  the  least ; 
and  even  then  it  would  do  little  good,  while  it  would  greatly 
encourage  the  utterers  of  scandal,  as  it  would  show  that  their 

attacks  were  thought  worth  noticing You  will  be 

glad  to  hear  that  the  English  Essays  are  again  very  good,  and 
so  I  think  are  some  of  the  Latin  Essays ;  the  verse  we  have 
not  yet  received.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  constantly  suf- 
ficient occasion  to  remember  our  humanity,  without  any  slave 
to  prompt  us. 

XCVIII.      TO    SIR   THOMAS    SABINE    PASLET,   BAKT. 

(In  answer  to  a  question  about  Public  and  Private  Schools.) 

Rugby,  April  15, 1835. 

The  difficulties  of  education  stare  me  in  the  face, 


whenever  I  look  at  my  own  four  boys.  I  think  by  and  by  that 
I  shall  put  them  into  the  school  here,  but  I  shall  do  it  with 
trembling.  Experience  seems  to  point  out  no  one  plan  of  edu- 
cation as  decidedly  the  best ;  it  only  says,  I  think,  that  public 
education  is  the  best  where  it  answers.  But  then  the  question 
is,  will  it  answer  with  one's  own  boy  ?  and  if  it  fails,  is  not  the 
failure  complete  ?  It  becomes  a  question  of  particulars  :  a 
very  good  private  tutor  would  tempt  me  to  try  private  educa- 
tion, or  a  very  good  public  school,  with  connections  amongst 
VOL.  i.  31 


862  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

the  boys  at  it,  might  induce  me  to  venture  upon  public.  Still 
there  is  much  chance  in  the  matter  ;  for  a  school  may  change 
its  character  greatly,  even  with  the  same  master,  by  the  preva- 
lence of  a  good  or  bad  set  of  boys  ;  and  this  no  caution  can 
guard  against.  But  I  should  certainly  advise  anything  rather 
than  a  private  school  of  above  thirty  boys.  Large  private 
schools,  I  think,  are  the  worst  possible  system  :  the  choice  lies 
between  public  schools,  and  an  education,  whose  character  may 
be  strictly  private  and  domestic.  This,  I  fear,  is  but  an  un- 
satisfactory opinion  ;  but  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  give  you  all 
the  advice  that  I  can  upon  any  particular  case  that  you  may 
have  to  propose,  when  I  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  in 
Westmoreland.  We  are  just  going  to  embark  on  our  time  of 
gayety,  or  rather,  I  may  say,  of  bustle  ;  for  we  shall  not  dine 
alone  again  for  the  next  fortnight.  I  am  going  south- 
wards instead  of  northwards,  to  my  old  home  at  Laleham, 
which  I  can  reach  in  twelve  hours  instead  of  twenty-four.  You 
may  imagine  that  we  often  think  of  Fox  How,  and  I  sighed 
to  see  the  wood  anemones  on  the  rock,  when  on  Tuesday  I 
went  with  all  the  children,  except  Fan,  to  the  only  place  within 
four  miles  of  us,  where  there  is  a  little  copse  and  wood  flowers. 


XCIX.         TO    H.    STRICKLAND,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  May  18,  1835. 

I  congratulate  you  on  your  prospects  of  exploring  Asia 
Minor,  and  I  should  be  most  happy  to  give  you  any  assistance 
in  my  power  towards  furthering  your  objects.  You  know,  I 
dare  say,  a  map  of  Asia  Minor  published  a  few  years  since,  by 
Colonel  Leake,  and  showing  all  that  was  then  known  of  that 
country.  The  Geographical  Society  will  give  you  all  informa- 
tion, which  you  may  need  as  to  more  recent  journeys  ;  but  I 
imagine  little  has  been  done  of  any  account.  What  is  to  be 
done,  may  be  divided  naturally  into  two  heads,  physical  re- 
search, and  moral,  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term.  As  to  the 
former  you  can  need  no  suggestions  from  me.  I  am  curious 
to  know  about  the  geology  —  whether  the  salt  lakes  of  the  in- 
terior belong  to  the  red  marl  formation,  and  whether  there  are 
any  traces  of  coal.  With  regard  to  the  botany,  every  observation, 
I  suppose,  will  be  valuable,  —  what  trees  and  shrubs  appear  to 
be  the  weeds  of  the  soil  ;  and  whether  there  is  any  appearance 
or  tradition  that  these  have  changed  within  historical  memory  ; 
whether  there  are  any  traces  of  destroyed  forests,  and  whether 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  363 

the  sands  have  encroached  or  are  encroaching  on  the  available 
soil,  either  in  the  valleys  or  elsewhere.  Again,  all  meteoro- 
logical observations  will  be  precious :  variations  of  tempera- 
ture at  different  levels  or  distances  from  the  sea ;  suddenness 
of  changes  of  temperature  ;  prevailing  winds,  quantity  of  rain 
that  falls,  &c.  All  facts  that  may  throw  any  light  upon  the 
phenomena  of  malaria  are  highly  important ;  and  I  think  it  is 
worth  while  to  bear  in  mind  the  possible,  if  not  probable,  con- 
nection between  epidemic  disorders  and  the  outbreak  of  vol- 
canic agency  and  electrical  phenomena.  The  return  of  crops 
—  how  many  fold  the  seed  yields  in  average  seasons,  is  also, 
I  think,  a  fact  always  worth  getting  at 

Now  for  matters  relating  to  man.  Asia  Minor  has  little 
historical  interest,  except  as  to  its  coasts  :  you  will  not  find  any 
places  of  note,  but  you  may  find  inscriptions,  and  of  course 
coins,  which  may  be  valuable.  The  point  for  inquiry,  as  far 
as  it  may  be  possible,  seems  to  me  to  be  the  languages  and 
dialects  of  the  country.  The  existence  of  the  Basque  lan- 
guage, as  well  as  of  the  Breton  and  Welsh,  shows  how  aborig- 
inal dialects  will  linger  on  through  successive  conquests  in 
remote  districts.  Turkish  can  hardly  be  the  universal  lan- 
guage, or,  if  it  is,  it  must  be  more  or  less  corrupting  with  a 
foreign  intermixture  ;  and  then,  any  of  these  corrupting  words 
may  be  very  curious,  as  relics  of  the  original  languages ;  and 
Phrygian,  we  know,  had,  even  amongst  the  Greeks,  a  charac- 
ter of  high  antiquity.  If  you  find  any  unexplored  libraries, 
look  out  for  palimpsests ;  in  these  lies  our  only  chance  of  re- 
covering anything  of  great  value ;  and  though  you  will  not 
have  time  to  spell  them  out,  yet  a  cursory  glance  may  give 
you  some  hints  as  to  what  they  are,  and  may  enable  you  to 
direct  the  inquiries  of  others.  All  old  or  actual  lines  of  road 
are  worth  attending  to,  and  of  course,  all  statistical  informa- 
tion. If  possible,  I  would  take  a  Strabo  with  me,  and  an 
Herodotus ;  also,  if  you  go  to  Trebizond,  the  Anabasis.  I 
should  like  to  explore  the  valley  of  the  Halys,  which,  I  sup- 
pose, must  be  one  of  the  finest  parts  of  the  whole  country ; 
but  the  greatest  part  of  it,  I  imagine,  will  be  sadly  tiresome. 

C.       TO    MR.    JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  May  20,  1835. 

I  have  just  been  setting  my  boys  a  passage  out  of  your 
edition  of  Blackstone,  to  translate  into  Latin  prose,  and  while 


364  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

they  are  doing  it,  I  will  begin  a  letter  to  you.'  I  have  had 
unmixed  satisfaction  in  all  I  have  heard  said  of  you  since  your 
elevation.  So  entirely  do  I  rejoice  in  it,  both  publicly  and 
privately,  that  I  could  almost  forgive  Sir  R.  Peel's  ministry 
their  five  months  of  office  for  the  sake  of  that  one  good  deed. 
I  do  hope  I  shall  see  you  ere  long,  for  I  yearn  sadly  after  my 

old  friends I  live  alone,  so  far  as  men  friends  are 

concerned,  and  am  obliged  more  and  more  to  act  and  think  by 
myself  and  for  myself.  It  was  therefore  very  delightful  to  me 
to  get  your  little  bit  of  counsel  touching  the  delay  of  my  book, 
and  I  am  gladly  complying  with  it.  But  I  have  read  more 
about  it,  and  for  a  longer  period  than  perhaps  you  are  aware 
of;  and  in  history,  after  having  reached  a  certain  point  of 
knowledge,  the  after  progress  increases  in  a  very  rapid  ratio, 
because  the  particular  facts  group  under  their  general  principle, 
and  gain  a  clearness  and  instructiveness  from  the  comparison 
with  other  analogous  facts,  which  in  their  solitary  state  they 
could  not  have. 

Your  uncle  said,  many  years  ago,  that,  "it  could  not  be 
wondered  at  if  good  men  were  slow  to  join  Mr.  Pitt's  party, 
seeing  that  it  dealt  in  such  atrocious  personal  calumnies."  I 
think  I  have  had  within  the  last  three  or  four  months  ample 
reason  to  repeat  his  observation.  Had  you  not  been  on  the 
Bench,  I  should  have  consulted  you  as  to  the  expediency  of 
noticing  some  of  them  legally;  and  now,  as  far  as  you  can 
with  propriety,  I  should  much  like  to  hear  what  you  would 
say.  The  attacks  go  on  weekly,  charging  me  with  corrupting 
the  boys'  religious  principles,  and  intending,  if  they  can,  to 
injure  me  in  my  trade.  I  am  assured  that  many  copies  of  the 
paper  in  which  most  of  these  libels  appear,  are  sent  gratu- 
itously to  persons  in  Ireland,  who  have  been  supposed  likely  to 
send  their  sons  here ;  and  the  same  tone  of  abuse  was  followed 
for  some  weeks  in  the  John  Bull.  I  think  that  this  spirit  of 
libel  is  peculiar  to  the  Tories,  from  L'Estrange  and  Swift 
downwards ;  just  ask  yourself,  if  you  have  known  any  Tory 
not  more  engaged  in  public  life  than  I  am,  and  having  given 
as  little  ground  for  attack  by  personalities  on  my  part,  who 
was  abused  by  the  Liberal  papers  as  I  have  been  by  the 
Tories.  I  often  think  of  the  rancorous  abuse  which  the  same 
party  heaped  upon  Burnett,  and  how  that  Exposition  of  the 
Articles,  which  Bishops  and  Divinity  Professors  and  Tutors 
now  recommend,  was  censured  by  the  Lower  House  of  Con- 
vocation as  latitudinarian. 


tlFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  366 

I  hope  you  saw  Wordsworth  when  -he  was  in  Lon- 
don, and  that  you  enjoy  his  new  volume.  I  have  been  read- 
ing a  good  deal  of  Pindar  and  of  Aristophanes  lately, — Pindar 
after  twenty  years'  interval,  and  how  much  more  interesting 
he  is  to  the  man  than  to  the  boy.  As  for  Homer,  it  is  my 
weekly  feast  to  get  better  and  better  acquainted  with  him.  In 
English  I  read  scarcely  anything,  and  I  know  not  when  I 
shall  be  able  to  do  it.  We  go  on  here  very  comfortably,  and 
the  school  is  in  a  very  satisfactory  state.  I  had  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  some  of  the  best  of  my  Rugby  pupils  here  at  Easter, 
and  one  of  the  best  of  my  Laleham  ones  was  here  a  little 
before.  It  is  the  great  happiness  of  my  profession  to  have 
these  relations  so  dear  and  so  enduring.  I  had  intended  to 
go  to  Oxford  to-day,  to  have  voted  in  favor  of  the  Declaration, 
instead  of  the  Subscription  to  the  Articles,  but  I  could  not 
well  manage  it,  and  it  was  of  little  consequence,  as  we  were 
sure  to  be  beaten.  It  makes  me  half  daft  to  think  of  Oxford 
and  the  London  University,  as  bad  as  one  another  in  their 
^opposite  ways,  and  perpetuating  their  badness  by  remaining 
distinct,  instead  of  mixing. 

CI.       TO    REV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

Rugby,  May  27,  1835. 

.....  I  sincerely  congratulate  you  on  being  honored  with 
the  abuse  of  my  friend  the  Northampton  Herald,  in  company 
with  Whately,  Hampden,  and  myself;  and  perhaps  I  feel 
some  malicious  satisfaction  that  you  should  be  thus  in  a  man- 
ner forced  into  the  boat  with  us,  while  you  perhaps  are  think- 
ing us  not  very  desirable  companions.  It  was  found,  I  believe, 
at  the  Council  of  Trent,  that  the  younger  clergy  were  far 
more  averse  to  reform  than  the  older ;  just  as  the  Juniores 
Patrum  at  Rome,  were  the  hottest  supporters  of  the  abuses' 
of  the  aristocracy ;  and  so  the  Convocation  has  shown  itself 
far  more  violent  and  obstinate  against  improvement  than  the 
Heads  of  Houses.  It  is  a  great  evil — a  national  evil,  I  think, 
of  very  great  magnitude ;  for  the  Charter  must  be,  and  ought 
to  be,  granted  to  the  London  University,  if  you  will  persist  in 
keeping  out  Dissenters  ;  and  then  there  will  be  two  party  places 
instead  of  one,  to  perpetuate  narrow  views,  and  disunion  to 
our  children's  children.  For  it  is  vain  to  deny,  that  the 
Church  of  England  clergy  have  politically  been  a  party  in 
rthe  country,  from  Elizabeth's  time  downwards,  and  a  party 
31* 


366  .LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

opposed  to  the-  cause,  which  in'lhe  main  has  been  the  cause  of 
improvement.  There  have  been  at  all  times  noble  individual 
exceptions,  and,  for  very  considerable  periods ;  in  the  reign  of 
George  the  Second,  and  in  the  early  part  of  George  the 
Third's  reign,  for  instance,  the  spirit  of  the  body  has  been 
temperate  and  conciliatory;  but  in  Charles  the  First  and 
Second's  reigns,  and  in  the  period  following  the  revolution, 
they  deserved  so  ill  of  their  country,  that  the  Dissenters  have 
at  no  time  deserved  worse ;  and,  therefore,  it  will  not  do  for 
the  Church  party  to  identify  themselves  with  the  nation,  which 
they  are  not,  nor  with  the  constitution,  which  they  did  their 
best  to  hinder  from  ever  coming  into  existence.  I  grant  that 
the  Dissenters  are,  politically  speaking,  nearly  as  bad,  and  as 
narrow-minded ;  but  then  they  have  more  excuse  in  belonging 
generally  to  a  lower  class  in  society,  and  not  having  been 
taught  Aristotle  and  Thucydides.  June  1st.  —  I  was  inter- 
rupted, for  which  you  will  not  be  sorry,  and  I  will  not  return 
to  the  subject  I  was  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  letter, 
and  pamphlet ;  but  though  I  approve  of  the  proposed  change, 
yet  of  course  it  does  not  touch  the  great  question. 

C1I.      TO   A   PERSON   DISTRESSED    BY    SCEPTICAL    DOUBTS. 

Rugby,  June  21, 1836. 

I  have  been  very  far  from  forgetting  you,  or  my  promise  to 
write  down  something  on  the  subject  of  our  conversation, 
though  I  have  some  fears  of  doing  more  harm  than  good,  by 
not  meeting  your  case  satisfactorily.  However,  I  shall  ven- 
ture, hoping  that  God  may  bless  the  attempt  to  your  comfort 
and  benefit. 

The  more  I  think  of  the  matter  the  more  I  am  satisfied 
that  all  speculations  of  the  kind  in  question  are  to  be  re- 
pressed by  the  will,  and  if  they  haunt  us,  notwithstanding  the 
efforts  of  our  will,  that  then  they  are  to  be  prayed  against,  and 
silently  endured  as  a  trial.  I  mean  speculations  turning  upon 
things  wholly  beyond  our  reach,  and  where  the  utmost  con- 
ceivable result  cannot  be  truth,  but  additional  perplexity.  Such 
must  be  the  question  as  to  the  origin  and  continued  existence 
of  moral  evil ;  which  is  a  question  utterly  out  of  our  reach,  as 
we  know  and  can  know  ndthing  of  the  system  of  the  universe, 
and  which  can  never  bring  us  to  truth,  because  if  we  adopt 
one  hypothesis  as  certain,  and  come  to  a  conclusion  upon  one 
theory,  we  shall  be  met  by  difficulties  quite  as  insuperable  on 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  367 

the  other  side,  which  would  oblige  us  in  fairness  to  go  over 
the  process  again,  and  to  reject  our  new  conclusion,  as  we  had 
done  our  old  one  ;  because  in  our  total  ignorance  of  the  matter, 
there  will  always  be  difficulties  in  the  way  of  any  hypothesis 
which  we  cannot  answer,  and  which  will  effectually  preclude 
our  ever  arriving  at  a  state  of  intellectual  satisfaction,  such  as 
consists  in  having  a  clear  view  of  a  whole  question,  from  first 
to  last,  and  seeing  that  the  premises  are  true,  the  conclusion 
fairly  drawn,  and  that  all  objections  to  either  may  be  satis- 
factorily answered.  This  state,  which  alone  I  suppose  de- 
serves to  be  called  knowledge,  is  one  which,  if  we  can  ever 
attain  it,  is  attainable  only  in  matters  merely  human,  and  only 
within  the  range  of  our  understanding  and  experience.  It  is 
manifest  that  the  sole  difficulty  in  the  subject  of  your  per- 
plexity is  merely  the  origin  of  moral  evil,  and  it  is  manifest 
also  that  this  difficulty  equally  affects  things  actually  existing 
around  us.  Yet  if  the  sight  of  wickedness  in  ourselves  or 
others  were  to  lead  us  to  perplex  ourselves  as  to  its  origin, 
instead  of  struggling  against  it  and  attempting  to  put  an  end 
to  it,  we  know  that  we  should  be  wrong,  and  that  evil  would 
thrive  and  multiply  on  such  a  system  of  conduct. 

This  would  have  been  the  language  of  a  heathen  Stoic  or 
Academician,  when  an  Epicurean  beset  him  with  the  difficulty 
of  accounting  for  evil  without  impugning  the  power  or  the 
goodness  of  the  gods.  And  I  think  that  this  language  was 
sound  and  practically  convincing,  quite  enough  so  to  show 
that  the  Epicurean  objection  sets  one  upon  an  error,  because 
it  leads  to  practical  absurdity  and  wickedness.  But  I  think 
that  with  us  the  authority  of  Christ  puts  things  on  a  different 
footing.  I  know  nothing  about  the  origin  of  evil,  but  I  believe 
that  Christ  did  know ;  and  as  our  common  sense  tells  us,  that 
we  can  strive  against  evil  and  sympathize  in  punishment  here, 
although  we  cannot  tell  how  there  comes  to  be  evil,  so  Christ 
tells  us  that  we  may  continue  these  same  feelings  to  the  state 
beyond  this  life,  although  the  origin  of  evil  is  still  a  secret  to 
us.  And  I  know  Christ  to  have  been  so  wise  and  so  loving 
to  men,  that  I  am  sure  I  may  trust  His  word,  and  that  what 
was  entirely  agreeable  to  His  sense  of  justice  and  goodness, 
cannot,  unless  through  my  own  defect,  be  otherwise  than 
agreeable  to  mine. 

Further,  when  I  find  Him  repelling  all  questions  of  curi- 
osity, and  reproving  in  particular  such  as  had  a  tendency  to 
lead  men  away  from  their  great  business,  —  the  doing  good  to 


368  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

themselves  and  others,  —  I  am  sure  that  if  I  stood  before 
Him,  and  said  to  Him,  "  Lord,  what  can  I  do  ?  for  I  cannot 
understand  how  God  can  allow  any  to  be  wicked,  or  why 
He  should  not  destroy  them,  rather  than  let  them  exist  to 
suffer ; "  that  His  mildest  answer  would  be,  "  What  is  that  to 
thee  —  follow  thou  me."  But  if  He,  who  can  read  the  heart, 
knew  that  there  was  in  the  doubt  so  expressed  anything  of 
an  evil  heart  of  unbelief —  of  unbelief  that  had  grown  out  of 
carelessness  and  from  my  not  having  walked  watchfully  after 
Him,  loving  Him,  and  doing  His  will,  —  then  I  should  expect 
that  He  would  tell  me  that  this  thought  had  come  to  me, 
because  I  neither  knew  Him  nor  His  Father,  but  had  neg- 
lected and  been  indifferent  to  both ;  and  then  I  should  be  sure 
that  He  would  give  me  no  explanation  or  light  at  all,  but 
would  rather  make  the  darkness  thicker  upon  me,  till  I  came 
before  Him  not  with  a  speculative  doubt,  but  with  an  earnest 
prayer  for  His  mercy  and  His  help,  and  with  a  desire  to  walk 
humbly  before  Hun,  and  to  do  His  will,  and  promote  His  king- 
dom. This,  I  believe,  is  the  only  way  to  deal  with  those  dis- 
turbances of  mind  which  cannot  lead  to  truth,  but  only  to 
perplexity.  Many  persons,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  endure 
some  of  these  to  their  dying  day,  well  aware  of  their  nature, 
and  not  sanctioning  them  by  their  will,  but  unable  to  shake 
them  off,  and  enduring  them  as  a  real  thorn  in  the  flesh,  as 
they  would  endure  the  far  lighter  trials  of  sickness  or  out- 
ward affliction.  But  they  should  be  kept,  I  think,  to  ourselves, 
and  not  talked  of  even  to  our  nearest  friends,  when  we  once 
understand  their  true  nature.  Talking  about  them  gives  them 
a  sort  of  reality  which  otherwise  they  would  not  have ;  just 
like  talking  about  our  dreams.  We  should  act  and  speak,  and 
try  to  feel  as  if  they  had  no  existence,  and  then  in  most  cases 
they  do  cease  to  exist  after  a  time ;  when  they  do  not,  they 
are  harmless  to  our  spiritual  nature,  although  I  fully  believe, 
that  they  are  the  most  grievous  affliction  with  which  human 
nature  is  visited. 

Of  course,  what  I  have  here  said  relates  only  to  such 
questions  as  cannot  possibly  be  so  answered  as  to  produce 
even  entire  intellectual  satisfaction,  much  less  moral  advan- 
tage. I  hold  that  Atheism  and  pure  scepticism  are  both 
systems  of  absurdity;  which  involves  the  condemnation  of 
hypotheses  leading  to  either  of  them  as  conclusions.  For 
Atheism  separates  truth  from  goodness,  and  Scepticism  de- 
stroys truth  altogether ;  both  of  which  are  monstrosities,  from 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  369 

which  we  should  revolt  as  from  real  madness.  With  my  ear- 
nest hopes  and  prayers  that  you  may  be  relieved  from  what  I 
know  to  be  the  greatest  of  earthly  trials,  but  with  a  no  less 
earnest  advice  that,  if  it  does  continue,  you  will  treat  it  as 
a  trial,  and  only  cling  the  closer,  as  it  were,  to  that  perfect 
Saviour,  in  the  entire  love  and  truth  of  whose  nature  all  doubt 
seems  to  melt  away,  and  who,  if  kept  steadily  before  our  minds, 
is,  I  believe,  most  literally  our  Bread  of  Life,  giving  strength 
and  peace  to  our  weakness  and  distractions. 

CIII.       TO    ONE    OP    THE    SIXTH   FORM,   THREATENED    WITH 
CONSUMPTION. 

Fox  How,  July  31,  1835. 

I  fear  that   you  will   have  found   your  patience 

much  tried  by  the  return  of  pain  in  your  side,  and  the  lassi- 
tude produced  by  the  heat ;  it  must  also  be  a  great  trial  not  to 
be  able  to  bear  reading.  I  can  say  but  little  of  such  a  state 
from  my  own  experience,  but  I  have  seen  much  of  it,  and 
have  known  how  easy  and  even  happy  it  has  become,  partly 
by  time,  but  more  from  a  better  support,  which  I  believe  is 
never  denied  when  it  is  honestly  sought.  And  I  have  always 
supposed  that  the  first  struggle  in  such  a  case  would  be  the 
hardest ;  that  is,  the  struggle  in  youth  or  middle  age  of  recon- 
ciling ourselves  to  the  loss  of  the  active  powers  of  life,  and  to 
the  necessity  of  serving  God  by  suffering  rather  than  by  doing. 
Afterwards,  I  should  imagine  the  mind  would  feel  a  great 
peace  in  such  a  state,  in  the  relief  afforded  from  a  great  deal 
of  temptation  and  responsibility,  and  the  course  of  duty  lying 
before  it  so  plain  and  so  simple. 

CIV.      TO    REV.    F.    C.   BLACKSTONE. 

Fox  How,  July  28,  1835. 

Next  week  we  probably  shall  return  to  "Warwick- 
shire, and  I  expect  the  unusual  circumstance  of  being  at 
Rugby  for  a  fortnight  in  the  holidays,  a  thing  which  in  itself 
I  shall  be  far  from  regretting,  though  I  certainly  am  not 
anxious  to  hasten  away  from  Westmoreland.  But  I  often 
look  at  the  backs  of  my  books  with  such  a  forlorn  glance 
during  the  half-year, —  it  being  difficult  then  to  read  consec- 
utively,—  that  I  rather  hail  the  prospect  of  being  able  to 
employ  a  few  mornings  in  some  employment  of  my  own. 


370  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

The  school  will  become  more  and  more  engrossing,  and  so  it 
ought  to  be,  for  it  is  impossible  ever  to  do  enough  in  it.  Yet 
I  think  it  essential  that  I  should  not  give  up  my  ov^n  reading, 
as  I  always  find  any  addition  of  knowledge  always  to  turn  to 
account  for  the  school  in  some  way  or  other.  I  fear,  however, 
that  I  am  growing  less  active ;  and  I  find  myself  often  more 
inclined  to  read  to  the  children,  or  to  amuse  myself  with  some 
light  book  after  my  day's  work  at  Rugby,  than  to  enter  on  any 
regular  employment. 

My  volume  of  Sermons  connected  with  Prophecy  is  still 
waiting,  but  I  hope  that  it  may  come  out  before  the  winter. 
It  is  a  great  joy  to  me  to  think  that  it  will  not  give  offence  to 
any  one,  but  will  at  any  rate,  I  trust,  be  considered  as  safe, 
and  as  far  as  it  goes  useful.  I  have  no  pleasure  in  writing 
what  is  unacceptable,  though  I  confess,  that,  the  more  I  study 
any  subject,  the  more  it  seems  to  me  to  require  to  be  treated 
differently  from  the  way  in  which  it  has  been  treated.  It  is 
grievous  to  think,  how  much  has  been  written  about  things 
with  such  imperfect  knowledge,  or  with  such  narrow  views,  as 
leaves  the  whole  thing  to  be  done  again.  Not  that  I  mean 
that  it  can  be  so  done  in  our  time,  as  to  leave  nothing  for  pos- 
terity,—  on  the  contrary,  we  know  how  imperfect  our  own 
knowledge  is,  and  how  much  requires  yet  to  be  learned.  Still 
in  this  generation  an  immense  step  has  been  made,  both  in 
knowledge  and  in  large  and  critical  views  ;  and  this  makes  the 
writings  of  a  former  age  so  unsatisfactory.  In  reading  them 
I  never  can  feel  satisfied  that  we  have  got  to  the  bottom  of  a 
question. 

I  was  very  much  delighted  to  have staying 

at  Rugby  for  nearly  a  week  with  us  in  the  spring.  I  had  not 
had  any  talk  with  him  since  he  was  my  pupil  at  Laleham.  I 
was  struck  with  the  recoil  of  his  opinions  towards  Toryism, 
or  at  any  rate  half-Toryism,  —  a  result,  which  I  have  seen 
in  other  instances  where  the  original  anti-Tory  feeling  was 
what  I  call  "  popular  "  rather  than  "  liberal,"  and  took  up  the 
notion  of  liberty  rather  than  of  improvement.  I  do  not  think 
that  Liberty  can  well  be  the  idol  of  a  good  and  sensible  mind 
after  a  certain  age.  My  abhorrence  of  Conservatism  is  not 
because  it  checks  liberty,  —  in  an  established  democracy  it 
would  favor  liberty ;  but  because  it  checks  the  growth  of  man- 
kind in  wisdom,  goodness,  and  happiness,  by  striving  to  main- 
tain institutions  which  are  of  necessity  temporary,  and  thus 
never  hindering  change,  but  often  depriving  the  change  of 
half  its  value. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  371 


CV.       TO    MR.    JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  July  1,  1835. 

1  thank  you  most  heartily  for  both  your  affectionate  letters. 
When  I  suspect  you  of  unkindness,  or  feel  offended  with 
anything  that  you  say  or  write  to  me,  I  must  have  cast  off 
my  nature  indeed  very  sadly.  Be  assured  that  there  was 
nothing  in  your  first  letter  which  you  could  wish  unwritten, 
nothing  that  was  not  written  in  the  true  spirit  of  friendship. 
I  was  vexed  only  thus  far,  that  I  could  not  explain  many 
points  to  you,  which  I  think  would  have  altered  your  judg- 
ment as  to  the  facts  of  the  case. 

My  dear  friend,  I  know  and  feel  the  many  great 

faults  of  my  life  and  practice ;  and  grieve  more  than  I  can 
say  not  to  have  more  intercourse  with  those  friends  who  used 
to  reprove  me,  I  think,  to  my  great  benefit  —  I  am  sure  with- 
out ever  giving  me  offence.  But  I  cannot  allow  that  those 
opinions,  which  I  earnestly  believe,  after  many  years'  thought 
and  study,  to  be  entirely  according  to  Christ's  mind,  and  most 
tending  to  His  glory,  and  the  good  of  His  Church,  shall  be 
summarily  called  heretical ;  and  it  is  something  of  a  trial  to 
be  taxed  with  perverting  my  boys'  religious  principles,  when  I 
am  laboring,  though  most  imperfectly,  to  lead  them  to  Christ 
in  true  and  devoted  faith ;  and  when  I  hold  all  the  scholarship 
that  ever  man  had,  to  be  infinitely  worthless  in  comparison 
with  even  a  very  humble  degree  of  spiritual  advancement. 
And  I  think  that  I  have  seen  my  work  in  some  instances 
blessed ;  —  not,  I  trust,  to  make  me  proud  of  it,  or  think  that 
I  have  anything  to  be  satisfied  with,  —  yet  so  far  as  to  make 
it  very  painful  to  be  looked  upon  as  an  enemy  by  those  whose 
Master  I  would  serve  as  heartily,  and  whom,  if  I  dare  say  it, 
I  love  with  as  sincere  an  affection  as  they  do. 

God  bless  you,  and  thank  you  for  all  your  kindness  to  me 
always. 

CVI.      TO    C.  J.   VAUGHAN,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  September  9, 1835. 

It  is  very  hard  to  know  what  to  say  of  Hatch  as 

to  his  bodily  health,  because,  though  appearances  are  unfa- 
vorable, Dr.  Jephson  still  speaks  confidently  of  his  recovery ; 
but  it  is  not  hard  to  know  what  to  say  of  his  mind,  which  I 
believe  is  quite  what  we  could  wish  it  to  be.  He  always 


372  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

seemed  to  me  a  most  guileless  person  when  in  health, — 
guileless  and  living  in  the  fear  of  God,  —  in  such  circum- 
stances sickness  does  but  feed  and  purify  the  flame  which  was 
before  burning  strong  and  brightly.  He  will  be  delighted  to 
hear  from  you,  and  would  be  interested  by  any  Cambridge 
news  that  you  could  send  him,  for  I  think  he  must  find  him- 
self often  in  want  of  amusement,  and  of  something  to  vary 
the  day.  I  am  glad  that  you  have  made  acquaintance  with 
some  of  the  good  poor.  I  quite  agree  with  you  that  it  is  most 
instructive  to  visit  them,  and  I  think  that  you  are  right  in 
what  you  say  of  their  more  lively  faith.  We  hold  to  earth 
and  earthly  things  by  so  many  more  links  of  thought,  if  not 
of  affection,  that  it  is  far  harder  to  keep  our  view  of  heaven 
clear  and  strong ;  when  this  life  is  so  busy,  and  therefore  so 
full  of  reality  to  us,  another  life  seems  by  comparison  unreal. 
This  is  our  condition,  and  its  peculiar  temptations ;  but  we 
must  endure  it,  and  strive  to  overcome  them,  for  J  think  we 
may  not  try  to  flee  from  it. 

I  have  begun  the  Phaedo  of  Plato  with  the  Sixth, 

which  will  be  a  great  delight  to  me.  There  is  an  actual 
pleasure  in  contemplating  so  perfect  a  management  of  so  per- 
fect an  instrument  as  is  exhibited  in  Plato's  language,  even  if 
the  matter  were  as  worthless  as  the  words  of  Italian  music ; 
whereas  the  sense  is  only  less  admirable  in  many  places  than 
the  language.  I  am  still  in  distress  for  a  Latin  book,  and 
wish  that  there  were  a  cheap  edition  of  Bacon's  Instauratio 
Magna.  I  would  use  it,  and  make  it  useful  in  point  of  Latin- 
ity,  by  setting  the  fellows  to  correct  the  style  where  it  is 
cumbrous  or  incorrect.  As  to  Livy,  the  use  of  reading  him 
is  almost  like  that  of  the  drunken  Helot.  It  shows  what  his- 
tory should  not  be  in  a  very  striking  manner ;  and,  though 
the  value  to  us  of  much  of  ancient  literature  is  greatly  out  of 
proportion  to  its  intrinsic  merit,  yet  the  books  of  Livy,  which 
we  have,  relate  to  a  time  so  uninteresting,  that  it  is  hard  even 
to  extract  a  value  from  them  by  the  most  complete  distillation ; 
so  many  gallons  of  vapid  water  scarcely  hold  in  combination 
a  particle  of  spirit. 

CVII.       TO    CHEVALIER    BUNSEN. 

Rugby,  September  21, 1835. 

I  have  been  and  am  working  at  two  main  things, 

the    Roman  History  and   the   nature   and   interpretation   of 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  373 

Prophecy.  For  the  first  I  have  been  working  at  Hannibal's 
passage  of  the  Alps.  How  bad  a  geographer  is  Polybius, 
and  how  strange  that  he  should  be  thought  a  good  one ! 
Compare  him  with  any  man  who  is  really  a  geographer,  with 
Herodotus,  with  Napoleon,  —  whose  sketches  of  Italy,  Egypt, 
and  Syria,  in  his  Memoirs,  are  to  me  unrivalled,  —  or  with 
Niebuhr,  and  how  striking  is  the  difference  !  The  dulness  of 
Polybius's  fancy  made  it  impossible  for  him  to  conceive  or 
paint  scenery  clearly,  and  how  can  a  man  be  a  geographer 
without  lively  images  of  the  formation  and  features  of  the 
country  which  he  describes  ?  How  different  are  the  several 
Alpine  valleys,  and  how  would  a  few  simple  touches  of  the  • 
scenery  which  he  seems  actually  to  have  visited,  yet  could 
neither  understand  nor  feel  it,  have  decided  forever  the 
question  of  the  route !  Now  the  account  suits  no  valley  well, 
and  therefore  it  may  be  applied  to  many ;  but  I  believe  the 
real  line  was  by  the  little  St.  Bernard,  although  I  cannot 
trace  those  particular  spots,  which  De  Luc  and  Cramer  fancy 
they  could  recognize.  I  thought  so  on  the  spot,  (i.  e.  that 
the  spots  could  not  be  traced,)  when  I  crossed  the  Little  St. 
Bernard,  in  1825,  with  Polybius  in  my  hand,  and  I  think  so 
still.  How  much  we  want  a  physical  history  of  countries, 
tracing  the  changes  which  they  have  undergone,  either  by 
such  violent  revolutions  as  volcanic  phenomena,  or  by  the 
slower  but  not  less  complete  change  produced  by  ordinary 
causes ;  such  as  alterations  of  climate  occasioned  by  inclosing 
and  draining;  alteration  in  the  course  of  rivers,  and  in  the 
level  of  their  beds ;  alteration  in  the  animal  and  vegetable 
productions  of  the  soil,  and  in  the  supply  of  metals  and  min- 
erals ;  noticing  also  the  advance  or  retreat  of  the  sea,  and  the 
origin  and  successive  increase  in  the  number  and  variation  in 
the  line  of  roads,  together  with  the  changes  in  the  extent  and 
character  of  the  woodlands.  How  much  might  be  done  by 
our  Society  at  Rome  if  some  of  its  attention  were  directed  to 
these  points :  for  instance,  drainage  and  an  alteration  in  the 
course  of  the  waters  have  produced  great  changes  in  Tus- 
cany ;  and  there  is  also  the  interesting  question  as  to  the 

spread  of  malaria  in  the  Maremme I  read  with  the 

greatest  interest  all  that  you  say  about  Hebrew  and  the  Old 
Testament,  and  your  researches  into  the  chronology  and  com- 
position of  the  books  of  the  New.  It  is  strange  to  see  how 
much  of  ancient  history  consists  apparently  of  patches  put 
VOL.  i.  32 


£74  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

together  from  various  quarters  without  any  redaction.*  Is 
not  this  largely  the  case  in  the  books  of  Samuel,  Kings,  and 
Chronicles  ?  For  instance,  are  not  chapters  xxiv.  and  xxvi. 
of  1  Samuel,  merely  different  versions  of  the  same  event, 
just  as  we  have  two  accounts  of  the  creation  in  the  early 
chapters  of  Genesis  ?  And  must  not  chapters  xvi.  and  xvii. 
of  the  same  book  be  also  from  different  sources,  the  account 
of  David  in  the  one  being  quite  inconsistent  with  that  in  the 
other  ?  So,  again,  in  2  Chronicles  xi.  20,  and  xiii.  2,  there 
is  a  decided  difference  in  the  parentage  of  Abijah's  mother, 
which  is  curious  on  any  supposition.  Do  you  agree  with 
Schleiermacher  in  denying  Paul  to  be  the  author  of  the 
Epistles  to  Timothy  and  Titus  ?  I  own  it  seems  to  me  that 
they  are  as  certainly  Paul's  as  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans ; 
nor  can  I  understand  the  reason  for  any  doubt  about  the 
matter.  And  yet  Schleiermacher  could  not  write  anything,  I 
should  suppose,  without  some  good  reasons  for  it.f 

CVIII.      *TO.   J.    P.  CELL,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  September  30, 1835. 

My  situation  here,  if  it  has  its  anxieties,  has  also  many 
great  pleasures,  amongst  the  highest  of  which  are  such  letters 
as  that  which  you  have  had  the  kindness  to  write  to  me.  I 
value  it  indeed  very  greatly,  and  sincerely  thank  you  for  it. 
I  had  been  often  told  that  I  should  know  you  much  more 
after  you  had  left  Rugby,  than  I  had  ever  done  before,  and 
your  letter  encourages  me  to  hope  that  it  will  be  so.  You 
will  not  think  that  it  is  a  mere  form  of  civil  words,  when  I 
say  we  shall  be  very  glad  to  see  you  here,  if  you  can  take  us 
in  your  way  to  Cambridge,  or  in  Westmoreland  in  the  whiter, 

*  For  his  full  view  of  the  apparent  discrepancies  of  Scripture,  see  Serm. 
vol.  iv.  481,  491. 

t  "  One  of  the  greatest  of  modern  critics.  Schleiermacher,  doubted  the 
genuineness  of  the  Epistles  to  Timothy.  This  arose  from  his  habit,  which 
many  Germans  have,  (though  Niebuhr  and  Bunsen  are  entirely  free  from 
it.)  of  taking  a  one-sided  view  of  such  questions,  and  suffering  small  objec- 
tions to  prevail  over  greater  confirmations.  The  difference  of  language  is 
merely  that  some  expressions  are  used  such  as  wo  mav  well  understand  a 
man  to  get  into  the  habit  of  using  at  one  time  of  his  Hie  and  not  at  another, 
and  it  is  absurd  to  let  these  prevail  over  the  strong  internal  evidence.  The 
fact  of  Timothy  being  spoken  of  as  young  in  bom  Epistles,  has  been  made 
an  objection  to  considering  these  Epistles  as  later  in  date  than  the  others; 
but  it  is  probable  that  Timothy  was  very  young  when  he  first  became  known 
to  St.  Paul  —  perhaps  not  more  than  sixteen  or  seventeen.  St.  Paul  seem? 
to  have  known  his  grandmother."  [Note  of  a  conversation  in  1840.] 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  375 

if  you  do  not  start  at  the  thought  of  a  Christmas  among  the 
mountains.  But  I  can  assure  you  that  you  will  find  them 
most  beautiful  in  their  winter  dress,  and  the  valleys  very  hu- 
manized. I  have  just  seen,  but  not  read,  the  second  number 
of  the  Rugby  Magazine.  I  have  an  unmixed  pleasure  in  its 
going  on,  —  perhaps,  just  under  actual  circumstances,  more 
than  at  some  former  time,  because  I  think  it  is  more  wanted. 
We  shall  soon  lose  Lake  and  Simpkinson  and  the  others,  who 
go  up  this  year  to  the  University.  There  is  always  a  melan- 
choly feeling  in  seeing  the  last  sheaf  carried  of  a  good  harvest; 
for  who  knows  what  may  be  the  crop  of  the  next  year  ?  But 
this,  happily  for  us,  is,  both  in  the  natural  and  in  the  moral 
harvest,  in  the  hands  of  Him  who  can  make  disappointment 
and  scarcity  do  his  work,  no  less  than  success  and  plenty. 

CIX.       *TO    A.    P.    STANLEY,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  October  7, 1835. 

I  am  delighted  to  find  that  you  are  coming  to  Rugby ;  in 
fact,  I  was  going  to  write  to  you  to  try  whether  we  could  not 
get  you  here  either  in  your  way  to  or  from  Oxford,  —  as  I 
suppose  that,  even  after  all  the  length  of  the  long  vacation, 
you  will  be  at  liberty  before  us  at  Christmas.  Thank  you 
for  your  congratulations  on  my  little  boy's  birth :  he  grows 
so  much  and  Fan  so  little,  that  I  think  he  will  soon  overtake 
her ;  though  it  will  be  well  if  ever  he  rivals  her  in  quickness 
and  liveliness. 

I  think  it  probable  that  about  the  time  when  his  old  com- 
panions are  beginning  their  new  course  of  earthly  life  at  the 
Universities,  Hatch  will  be  entering  upon  the  beginning  of 
his  eternal  life.  He  grows  so  much  worse,  that  yesterday  he 
was  hardly  expected  to  outlive  the  day.  I  think  myself  that 
his  trial  will  be  somewhat  longer  ;  but  I  believe  that  his  work 
is  over,  and  am  no  less  persuaded  that  his  rest  in  Christ  is 
sure. 

I  shall  be  glad  to  talk  over  all  things  with  you  when  we 
meet ;  be  sure  that  you  cannot  come  here  too  often :  I  never 
was  less  disposed  than  I  am  at  this  moment  to  let  drop  or  to 
intermit  my  intercourse  with  my  old  pupils ;  which  is  to  me 
»ne  of  the  freshest  springs  of  my  life. 


876  LIFE  OF  DB.  ARNOLD. 

CX.      TO   AN   OLD    PUPIL.       (fi.) 

Rugby,  October  80,  183*. 

I  am  a  little  disturbed  by*what  you  tell  me  of 

your  health,  and  can  readily  understand  that  it  makes  you 
look  at  all  things  with  a  less  cheerful  eye  than  I  could  wish. 
Besides,  all  great  changes  in  life  are  solemn  things,  when  we 
think  of  them,  and  have  naturally  their  grave  side  as  well  as 
their  merely  happy  one.  This  is  in  itself  only  wholesome, 
but  the  grave  side  may  be  unduly  darkened  if  we  who  look  on 
it  are  ourselves  out  of  tune.  I  am  glad  that  you  have  written 
again  to  Thomson :  his  report  of  you  to  me  was  very  satisfac- 
tory, and  I  have  great  faith  in  his  skilL  Remember,  how- 
ever, that  exercise  must  not  be  wearisome,  and  especially  not 
wearisome  to  the  mind,  if  it  is  to  be  really  beneficial.  I 
never  have  regarded  a  regular  walk  along  a  road,  talking  the 
while  on  subjects  of  interest,  as  exercise  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  term.  A  skirmish  over  the  country  is  a  very  different 
thing,  and  so  is  all  that  partakes  of  the  character  of  play  or 
sport. 

Believe  me  that  it  is  a  great  pleasure  to  me 

to  hear  from  you,  and  you  must  not  think  that  any  parts  of 
your  letters  are  unnoticed  by  me,  or  uninteresting,  if  I  do  not 
especially  reply  to  them.  I  value  very  much  the  expression 
of  your  feelings,  and  I  think  have  a  very  true  sympathy  with 
them. 

CXL      TO    MR.  JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  October  12,  1885. 

Our   visit   to   Westmoreland    was   short,   for   we 

returned  home  early  in  August,  to  be  ready  for  my  wife's 
confinement.  But  I  could  not  have  enjoyed  three  weeks 
more  ;  for  the  first  week  we  had  so  much  rain  that  the  Rotha 
flooded  a  part  of  our  grass.  Afterwards  we  had  the  most  bril- 
liant weather,  which  brought  our  flowers  out  in  the  greatest 
beauty ;  but  the  preceding  rain  kept  us  quite  green,  and  the 
contrast  was  grievous  in  that  respect  when  we  came  back  to 
the  brown  fields  of  Warwickshire.  But  I  cannot  tell  you 
how  I  enjoyed  our  fortnight  at  Rugby  before  the  school 

opened.     It  quite  reminded  me  of  Oxford,  when  M and 

I  used  to  sit  out  in  the  garden  under  the  enormous  elms  of 
the  School-field,  which  almost  overhang  the  house,  and  saw 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  377 

the  line  of  our  battlemented  roofs  and  the  pinnacles  and  cross 
of  our  chapel  cutting  the  unclouded  sky.  And  I  had  divers 
happy  little  matches  at  cricket  with  my  own  boys  in  the 
School-field,  —  on  the  very  cricket-ground  of  the  "  eleven," 
that  is,  of  the  best  players  in  the  school,  on  which,  when  the 
school  is  assembled,  no  profane  person  may  encroach.  Then 
came  my  wife's  happy  confinement,  before  which  we  had  had 
a  very  happy  visit  of  a  day  from  the  whole  family  of  Hulls, 
and  which  was  succeeded  by  a  no  less  happy  visit  from  the 
whole  family  of  Whatelys. 

Have  you  seen  our  Rugby  Magazine,  of  which  the  second 
number  has  just  made  its  appearance  ?  It  is  written  wholly 
either  by  boys  actually  at  the  school,  or  by  undergraduates 
within  their  first  year.  I  delight  in  the  spirit  of  it,  and 
think  there  is  •  much  ability  in  many  of  the  articles.  I  think 
also  that  it  is  likely  to  do  good  to  the  school. 

We  have  lost  this  year  more  than  half  of  our  Sixth  Form, 
so  that  the  influx  of  new  elements  has  been  rather  dispro- 
portionately great ;  and  unluckily  the  average  of  talent  just 
in  this  part  of  the  school  is  not  high.  We  have  a  very  good 
promise  below,  but  at  present  we  shall  have  great  difficulty 
in  maintaining  our  ground ;  and  then  I  always  fear  that, 
where  the  intellect  is  low,  the  animal  part  will  predominate ; 
and  that  moral  evils  will  increase,  as  well  as  intellectual 
proficiency  decline,  under  such  a  state  of  things.  At  present 
I  think  that  the  boys  seem  very  well  disposed,  and  I  trust 
that,  in  this  far  more  important  matter,  we  shall  work  through 
our  time  of  less  bright  sunshine  without  material  injury.  It 
would  overpay  me  for  far  greater  uneasiness  and  labor  than 
I  have  ever  had  at  Rugby ;  to  see  the  feeling  both  towards  the 
school  and  towards  myself  personally,  with  which  some  of  our 
boys  have  been  lately  leaving  us.  One  stayed  with  us  in  the 
house  for  his  last  week  at  Rugby,  dreading  the  approach  of 
the  day  which  should  take  him  to  Oxford,  although  he  was 
going  up  to  a  most  delightful  society  of  old  friends ;  and, 
when  he  actually  came  to  take  leave,  I  really  think  that  the 
parting  was  like  that  of  a  father  and  his  son.  And  it  is  de- 
lightful to  me  to  find  how  glad  all  the  better  boys  are  to  come 
back  here  after  they  have  left  it,  and  how  much  they  seem 
to  enjoy  staying  with  me  ;  while  a  sure  instinct  keeps  at  a 
distance  all  whose  recollections  of  the  place  are  connected 
with  no  comfortable  reflections.  Meantime  I  write  nothing, 
and  read  barely  enough  to  keep  my  mind  in  the  state  of  a 


378  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

running  stream,  which  I  think  it  ought  to  be  if  it  would  form 
or  feed  other  minds  ;  for  it  is  ill  drinking  out  of  a  pond, 
whose  stock  of  water  is  merely  the  remains  of  the  long-past 
rains  of  the  winter  and  spring,  evaporating  and  diminishing 
every  successive  day  of  drought.  We  are  reading  now  Plato's 
Phaedo,  which  I  suppose  must  be  nearly  the  perfection  of 
human  language.  The  admirable  precision  of  the  great  Attic 
writers  is  to  me  very  striking.  When  you  get  a  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  language,  they  are  clearer  than  I  think  an 
English  writer  can  be,  from  the  inferiority  of  his  instrument. 
I  often  think  that  I  could  have  understood  your  uncle  better 
if  he  had  written  in  Platonic  Greek.  His  Table-Talk  marks 

him,  in  my  judgment, as  a  very  great  man  indeed, 

whose  equal  I  know  not  where  to  find  in  England.  It  amused 
me  to  recognize,  in  your  contributions  to  the  book,  divers 
anecdotes  which  used  to  excite  the  open-mouthed  admiration 
of  the  C.C.C.  Junior  Common  Room  in  the  Easter  and  Act 
Terms  of  1811,  after  your  Easter  vacation  spent  with  Mr. 
May  at  Richmond.  My  paper  is  at  an  end,  but  not  mj 
matter  Perhaps  I  may  see  you  in  the  winter  in  town. 


END  OF  VOL.  J. 


THE 


LIFE   AND   CORRESPONDENCE 


OP 


LATE   HEAD-MASTER  OF   RUGBY   SCHOOL,  AND   REGIUS  PROFESSOR  OF 
MODERN  HISTORY   IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD. 


VOL.  II. 


THE 


LIFE  OF  THOMAS  ARNOLD,  D.D. 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

LIFE  AND   CORRESPONDENCE,   SEPTEMBER,    1835,   TO 
NOVEMBER,    1838. 

THERE  is  little  to  distinguish  the  next  three  years  of 
Dr.  Arnold's  life  from  those  which  precede.  The  strong 
feeling  against  him,  though  with  some  abatement  of  its 
vehemence,  still  continued ;  the  effect  of  it  was  perhaps 
visible  in  the  slight  falling  off  in  the  numbers  of  the 
school  in  1837-38,  at  the  time  of  the  very  height  of  its 
reputation  at  the  Universities  ;  and  in  his  own  profes- 
sion it  appeared  so  generally  to  prevail,  that,  on  occa- 
sion of  a  proposal  to  him  from  the  Bishop  of  Norwich, 
to  preach  his  Consecration  sermon  at  Lambeth,  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  thought  it  his  duty  to  with- 
hold his  permission,  solely  on  the  ground  of  the  unfa- 
vorable reception  which  he  supposed  it  would  meet 
among  the  clergy.  But  his  letters,  and  some  of  the 
Sermons  in  the  fourth  volume,  preached  at  this  time, 
show  how  this  period  of  comparative  silence  was  yet, 
both  in  thought  and  action,  most  emphatically  his 
period  of  battle ;  when,  as  if  tired  of  acting  on  the 
defensive,  he  was  at  last  roused  to  attack  in  return. 
The  vehemence  of  the  outcry  by  which  he  had  been 
assailed,  drove  him  into  a  more  controversial  atmos- 
phere. The  fact  of  the  more  positive  formation  of  his 


14  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

own  opinions  brought  him  more  immediately  into  col- 
lision with  the  positive  opinions  of  others.  The  view 
with  which  he  thus  entered  on  his  chief  actual  con- 
tests with  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  two  great  evils 
of  the  age,  is  expressed  in  the  twentieth  Sermon  in  the 
fourth  volume,  preached  September,  1836,  on  the  oppo- 
site idols  of  unbelief  and  superstition,  and  on  the  only 
mode  by  which,  in  his  judgment,  either  could  be  coun- 
teracted. These  two  contests  were,  on  the  one  hand, 
against  the  school  then  dominant  in  the  London  Uni- 
versity ;  on  the  other  hand,  against  the  school  then 
dominant  in  Oxford. 

I.  And  first,  with  regard  to  Oxford.  From  the  ear- 
liest formation  of  his  opinions  he  had  looked  upon  (so- 
called)  High-Church  Doctrines  as  a  great  obstruction 
to  the  full  development  of  national  Christianity.  But, 
up  to  the  time  here  spoken  of,  these  doctrines  were 
held  in  a  form  too  vague  and  impalpable  to  come  into 
immediate  collision  with  any  of  his  own  views.  When 
he  wrote  the  pamphlet  on  the  Roman  Catholic  ques- 
tion in  1829,  he  could  refer  to  a  sermon  of  the  Rev. 
W.  F.  Hook,  on  the  Apostolical  Succession,  as  a  rare 
exception  to  the  general  tone  of  English  Clergymen. 
When  he  wrote  his  pamphlet  on  Church  Reform  in 
1833,  he  could  still,  as  if  mentioning  a  strange  phe- 
nomenon, speak  of  "  those  extraordinary  persons  who 
gravely  maintain  that  primitive  episcopacy,  and  epis- 
copacy as  it  now  exists  in  England,  are  essentially  the 
same."  (Postscript,  p.  13.)  No  definite  system  seemed 
to  stand  in  the  way  of  what  he  conceived  to  be  the 
best  method  of  saving  the  English  Church  and  nation ; 
and  if,  in  any  instances,  deeper  principles  than  those  of 
the  old  High-Church  party  were  at  work,  his  sense  of 
disagreement  seemed  almost  lost  in  the  affectionate 
reverence  witli  which  he  regarded  the  friends  of  his 
youth  who  held  them.  His  foremost  thought  in  speak- 
ing of  them  was  of  "  men  at  once  pious,  high-minded, 
intelligent,  and  full  of  all  kindly  feelings ;  whose  intense 
love  for  the  forms  of  the  Church,  fostered  as  it  has  been 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  15 

by  all  the  best  associations  of  their  pure  and  holy  lives, 
has  absolutely  engrossed  their  whole  nature,  so  that 
they  have  neither  eyes  to  see  of  themselves  any  defect 
in  the  Liturgy  and  Articles,  nor  ears  to  hear  of  such, 
when  alleged  by  others."  His  statement  of  his  own 
opinions  was  blended  with  the  bitter  regret  that  "  they 
will  not  be  willing  to  believe  how  deeply  painful  it  is 
to  my  mind  -to  know  that  I  am  regarded  by  them  as 
an  adversary,  still  more  to  feel  that  I  am  associated  in 
their  judgment  with  principles  and  with  a  party  which 
I  abhor  as  deeply  as  they  do."  (Church  Reform, 
p.  83.) 

But  in  1834,  35,  36,  he  found  his  path  crossed  sud- 
denly, and  for  the  first  time,  by  a  compact  body,  round 
which  all  the  floating  elements  of  High-Church  opin- 
ions seemed  to  crystallize  as  round  a  natural  centre : 
and  to  him,  seeing,  as  he  did  from  the  very  first,  the 
unexpected  revival  of  what  he  conceived  to  be  the 
worst  evils  of  Roman  Catholicism,  the  mere  shock  of 
astonishment  was  such  as  can  hardly  be  imagined  by 
those  who  (Md  not  share  with  him  the  sense  either  of 
the  suddenness  of  the  first  appearance  of  this  new 
Oxford  school,  or  of  the  consequences  contained  in  it. 
And  further,  this  first  impression  was  of  a  kind  pecu- 
liarly offensive  to  all  the  tendencies  of  his  nature,  pos- 
itive  as  well  as  negative.  Almost  the  only  subject 
insisted  upon  in  the  first  two  volumes  of  "  The  Tracts 
for  the  Times,"  1833-36,  (so  far  as  they  consisted  of 
original  papers,)  was  the  importance  of  ".the  Apostol- 
ical Succession"  of  the  clergy,  and  the  consequent 
exclusive  claims  of  the  Church  of  England  to  be  regard- 
ed as  the  only  true  Church  in  England,  if  not  in  the 
world.  In  other  words,  the  one  doctrine  which  was 
then  put  forward  as  the  cure  for  the  moral  and  social 
evils  of  the  Country,  which  he  felt  so  keenly,  was  the 
one  point  in  their  system  which  he  always  regarded  as 
morally  powerless  and  intellectually  indefensible ;  as 
Incompatible  with  all  sound  notions  of  law  and  govern- 
ment ;  and  as  tending  above  all  things  to  substitute  a 


16  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

ceremonial  for  a  spiritual  Christianity ;  whilst  of  the 
many  later  developments  of  the  system,*  which  had 
been  objects  of  his  admiration  and  aspirations,  long 
before  or  altogether  independent  of  the  Tracts  in  ques- 
tion, little  was  said  at  all,  and  hardly  anything  urged 
prominently. 

On  this  new  portent,  as  he  deemed  it,  thus  brought 
before  his  notice,  the  dislike,  which  he  naturally  enter- 
tained towards  the  principles  embodied  in  its  appear- 
ance, became  at  once  concentrated.  For  individual 
members  of  the  party  he  often  testified  his  respect ; 
and  towards  those  whom  he  had  known  personally,  he 
never  lost  his  affection,  or  relinquished  his  endeavors 
to  maintain  a  friendly  intercourse  with  them.  Still,  he 
looked  henceforward  upon  the  body  itself,  not,  as  for- 
merly, through  the  medium  of  its  constituent  members, 
but  of  its  principles ;  the  almost  imploring  appeal  to 
their  sympathy,  which  has  been  quoted  from  the  close 
of  the  Pamphlet  of  1833,  was  never  repeated.  He  no 
longer  dwelt  on  the  reflection  that  "  in  the  Church  of 
England  even  bigotry  often  wears  a  softer  and  a  nobler 
aspect,"  and  that  "  it  could  be  no  ordinary  Church  to 
have  inspired  such  devoted  adoration  in  such  men,  nor 
they  ordinary  men,  over  whom  a  sense  of  high  moral 
beauty  should  have  obtained  so  complete  a  mastery." 
(Ib.  p.  83.)  He  rather  felt  himself  called  to  insist  on 
what  he  regarded  as  the  dark  side  of  the  picture ;  "  on 
the  fanaticism  which  has  been  the  peculiar  disgrace  of 
the  Church  of  England,"  "  a  dress,  a  ritual,  a  name, 
a  ceremony,  a  technical  phraseology,  —  the  superstition 
of  a  priesthood  without  its  power,  —  the  form  of  Epis- 
copal government  without  its  substance,  —  a  system 
imperfect  and  paralyzed,  not  independent,  not  sover- 
eign, —  afraid  to  cast  off  the  subjection  against  which 
it  was  perpetually  murmuring,  —  objects  so  pitiful, 
that,  if  gained  ever  so  completely,  they  would  make 
no  man  the  wiser,  or  the  better  ;  they  would  lead  to  no 

*  As  one  out  of  many  instances,  may  be  mentioned  the  views  already 
quoted  in  p.  192,  vol.  i. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  17 

good,  intellectual,  moral,  or  spiritual."      (Ed.  Rev. 
vol.  Ixiii.  p.  235.) 

And  all  his  feelings  of  local  and  historical  associa- 
tions combined  to  aggravate  the  unfavorable  aspect 
under  which  this  school  presented  itself  to  him.  Those 
only  who  knew  his  love  for  Oxford,  as  he  thought  it 
ought  to  be,  can  understand  his  indignation  against  it, 
as  he  thought  it  was ;  nor  were  the  passionate  sympa- 
thies and  antipathies  of  the  exiled  Italian  poet  more 
sharpened  by  conflicting  feelings  towards  the  ideal  and 
actual  Florence,  than  were  those  of  the  English  theolo- 
gian and  citizen  towards  Oxford,  the  "  ancient  and 
magnificent  University  "  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames, 
alike  beloved  as  the  scene  of  his  early  friendships,  and 
longed  for  as  the  scene  of  his  dreams  of  future  useful- 
ness ;  and  Oxford,  the  home  of  the  Tory  and  High- 
Church  clergy,  the  strong-hold  of  those  tendencies  in 
England  which  seemed  to  make  him  their  peculiar 
victim.  And  again,  those  only  who  knew  how  long 
and  deeply  he  had  dreaded  the  principles,  which  he 
now  seemed  to  himself  to  see  represented  in  bodily 
shape  before  him,  will  understand  the  severity  with 
which,  when  strongly  moved,  he  attacked  this  class  of 
opinions.  "  I  doubt,"  he  said,  in  a  letter  of  1888,  in 
vindication  of  the  absolute  repulsion  which  he  felt  at 
that  time  to  any  one  professing  admiration  for  them, 
"  I  doubt  whether  I  should  be  a  good  person  to  deal 
with  anybody  who  is  inclined  to  Newmanism.  Not 
living  in  Oxford,  and  seeing  only  the  books  of  the  New- 
manites,*  and  considering  only  their  system,  any  mind 

*  Lest  the  occurrence  of  this  phrase  here  and  elsewhere  in  the  correspon- 
dence, in  speaking  colloquially  of  the  opinions  in  question,  should  bear  a 
more  personal  allusion  to  living  individuals  than  was  in  his  mind,  it  is  right 
to  give  from  the  preface  to  his  fourth  volume  of  Sermons,  his  own  deliberate 
notice  of  a  similar  use  of  the  name.  "  In  naming  Mr.  Newman  as  the  chief 
author  of  the  system  which  I  have  been  considering,  I  have  in  no  degree 
wished  to  make  the  question  personal,  but  Mr.  Perceval's  letter  authorizes 
us  to  consider  him  as  one  of  the  authors  of  it ;  and,  as  I  have  never  had  any 
personal  acquaintance  with  him,  I  could  mention  his  name  with  no  shock  to 
any  private  feelings  either  in  him  or  in  myself.  But  I  have  spoken  of  him 
simply  as  the  maintainer  of  certain  doctrines,  not  as  maintaining  them  in 
any  particular  manner,  far  less  as  actuated  by  any  particular  motives." 

2*  B 


18  LIFE  OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

that  can  turn  towards  them,  i.  e.  their  books  and  their 
system,  with  anything  less  than  unmixed  aversion, 
appears  to  be  already  diseased ;  and  do  what  I  will,  I 
cannot  make  allowance  enough  for  the  peculiar  circum- 
stances of  Oxford,  because  I  cannot  present  them  to  my 
mind  distinctly.  You  must  remember  that  their  doc- 
trines are  not  to  me  like  a  new  thing,  which,  never 
having  crossed  my  mind  before,  requires  now  a  full 
and  impartial  examination  ;  all  their  notions  and  their 
arguments  in  defence  of  them,  (bating  some  surpassing 
extravagances  which  the  intoxication  of  success  has 
given  birth  to,)  have  been  familiar  to  my  mind  for 
years.  They  are  the  very  errors  which,  in  studying 
moral  and  religious  truth,  I  have  continually  had  to 
observe  and  to  eschew ;  the  very  essence  of  one  of  the 
two  great  divisions  of  human  falsehood,  against  which 
the  wisdom  of  God  and  man  has  most  earnestly  com- 
bated,—  in  which  man's  folly  and  wickedness  has  ever 
found  its  favorite  nourishment." 

To  these  general  feelings,  which,  though  expressed  at 
times  more  strongly  than  usual,  he  never  altogether 
lost,  were  added  occasional  bursts  of  indignation  at 
particular  developments  of  what  he  conceived  to  be  the 
natural  tendency  of  the  school  to  grave  moral  faults. 
These  occasions  will  appear  in  his  letters  as  they  occur ; 
of  which  the  first  and  most  memorable  was  the  contro- 
versy relating  to  the  appointment  of  Dr.  Hampden  to 
the  Regius  Professorship  of  Divinity,  at  Oxford,  in  the 
spring  of  1836. 

His  feelings  at  this  juncture  were  shared  in  some 
respects  by  many  others.  Many  on  the  one  hand  who, 
in  general  opinion,  widely  differed  from  him,  were  yet 
equally  with  himself  persuaded  that  there  was  great 
unfairness  in  the  extracts  then  made  from  Dr.  Hamp- 
den's  writings ;  and  on  the  other  hand  it  is  no  less 
certain  that  the  most  eminent  of  those  who  made  and 
circulated  the  extracts  had  almost  as  little  sympathy 
as  himself  with  the  general  conduct  and  feeling  of  those 
who  supported  them  in  the  columns  of  newspapers, 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  19 

and  in  the  tumultuous  assemblies  called  together  to 
the  Oxford  Convocation.  But  there  were  several  points 
which  combined  to  make  it  peculiarly  exasperating  to 
one  with  his  views  and  in  his  position.  The  very  fact  of 
an  opposition  to  an  appointment,  which  on  public 
grounds  he  had  so  much  desired,  was  in  itself  irritat- 
ing,—  the  accusations,  which,  whether  just  or  unjust, 
were  based  on  subtle  distinctions,  alien  alike  to  his 
taste  and  his  character,  and  especially  calculated  to 
offend  and  astonish  him,  the  general  gathering  of  the 
Clergy,  both  of  those  whom  he  regarded  as  fanatics, 
and  those  whom  he  emphatically  denounced  as  the 
party  of  Hoplmi  and  Phinehas,  to  condemn,  in  his 
judgment,  on  false  grounds,  by  an  irregular  tribunal, 
an  innocent  individual,  —  provoked  in  equal  measure 
his  anger  and  his  scorn  ;  his  sense  of  truth  and  justice, 
and  his  natural  impetuosity  in  behalf  of  what  he 
deemed  to  be  right. 

Whatever  feelings  had  been  long  smouldering  in  his 
mind  against  the  spirit  of  the  Conservative  and  High- 
Church  party,  which  for  the  last  three  years  had  been 
engaged  with  him  in  such  extreme  hostility,  took  fire 
at  last  at  the  sight  of  that  spirit,  displaying  itself  in 
that  place,  on  such  an  occasion,  and  under  such  a  form, 
with  such  tremendous  strength  and  vehemence.  And, 
as  usual,  the  whole  scene  was  invested  in  his  eyes  with 
a  tenfold  interest  by  the  general  principles  which  it 
seemed  to  involve.  In  the  place  of  the  Oxford  Con- 
vocation there  rose  before  him  the  image,  which  he 
declared  that  he  could  not  put  away  from  him,  of  the 
Nonjurors  reviling  Burnet,  —  of  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance condemning  Huss,  —  of  the  Judaizers  banded 
together  against  St.  Paul. 

That  the  object  of  attack  was  not  himself,  but 
another,  and  that  other  barely  known  to  him,  only 
made  it  the  more  impossible  for  him  to  keep  silence  ; 
and  accordingly,  under  the  influence  of  these  com- 
bined feelings,  and  with  his  usual  rapidity  of  composi- 
tion, he  gave  vent  to  his  indignation  in  an  article  in 


20  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

the  Edinburgh  Review,  of  April,  1836,  entitled  by  tho 
Editor,  "The  Oxford  Malignants."  It  is  painful  to 
dwell  on  a  subject  of  which  the  immediate  interest  is 
passed  away,  and  of  which  the  mention  must  give  pain 
to  many  concerned.  But,  though  only  a  temporary 
production,  it  forms  a  feature  in  his  life  too  strongly 
marked  to  be  passed  over  without  notice.  On  the  one 
hand  it  completely  represents  his  own  deep  feeling  at 
the  time,  and  in  impassioned  earnestness,  force  of  ex- 
pression, and  power  of  narrative,  is  perhaps  equal  to 
anything  he  ever  wrote  ;  on  the  other  hand  it  contains 
the  most  startling  and  vehement,  because  the  most  per- 
sonal, language  which  he  ever  allowed  himself  deliber- 
ately to  use.  The  offence  caused  by  it,  even  amongst 
his  friends,  was  very  great ;  and  whatever  feeling,  politi- 
cal or  theological,  existed  against  him  was  for.  the  time 
considerably  aggravated  by  it.  It  was  his  only  pub 
lished  notice  of  the  Oxford  School  between  his  third 
and  fourth  volumes  of  Sermons  ;  but  though  he  never 
again  expressed  himself  with  equal  vehemence,  these 
proceedings  at  Oxford  left  an  impression  upon  his 
mind  which  he  never  entirely  lost,  and  which  showed 
itself  long  afterwards  in  the  stronger  language  of 
moral  condemnation,  which  he  used  in  speaking  of  the 
views  in  question. 

II.  The  office  of  a  Fellowship  in  the  Senate  of  the 
new  London  University  was  offered  to  him  by  Mr. 
Spring  Rice,  then  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  in 
September,  1835  ;  and  he  resolved  to  accept  it,  with 
the  same  views  with  which  he  had  some  years  before 
thought  of  becoming  a  Professor  in  the  older  institu- 
tion of  the  same  name,  in  the  hope  of  giving  a  relig- 
ious influence  to  its  proceedings,  and  of  realizing  the 
visions  which  he  had  long  fondly  entertained,  of  a 
great  institution  of  national  education,  which  (to  use 
his  own  words)  should  be  Christian,  yet  not  sectarian. 
He  at  first  consented  to  "join  it,  without  insisting  on 
a  Scriptural  examination  ;  on  the  alleged  ground  of 
fact,  that  such  an  examination  was  not  practicable  on 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  21 

account  of  the  objections  of  different  classes  of  Chris- 
tians ;  and  on  the  hope  which  he  distinctly  expressed, 
that  the  Christian  character  of  the  University  might 
be  secured  without  it."  But  "  when,"  he  adds,  "  on 
coming  to  think  and  talk  more  on  the  subject,  I  was 
more  and  more  convinced  that  the  Scriptural  exami- 
nation was  both  practical  and  all  but  indispensable,"  — 
"  when  Whately  assured  me  of  its  proved  practicabil- 
ity in  Ireland,  —  when  Yates,  the  Unitarian,  to  whom 
I  wrote  on  the  subject,  agreed  with  me  also,  —  and 
when  I  found  that  there  was  a  very  great  necessity  for 
avowing  the  Christian  principle  strongly,  because  Un- 
belief was  evidently  making  a  cat's  paw  of  Dissent," 
he  gave  notice  of  his  intention  of  recommending  the 
introduction  of  the  Scriptures  as  a  part  of  the  classical 
examinations  for  every  degree. 

The  suggestion  of  his  views  was,  even  to  those  of  his 
colleagues  who  were  most  disposed  to  co-operate  with 
him,  more  or  less  unexpected  ;  whilst  the  majority  of 
the  Senate  was  either  hostile  or  indifferent  to  them. 
But  he  pressed  them  with  all  his  natural  eagerness  and 
earnestness :  "I  do  not  understand,"  was  his  char- 
acteristic answer  to  the  argument,  that,  though  the 
measure  was  in  itself  right,  the  times  would  not  bear 
it,  —  "I  do  not  understand  how  the  times  can  help 
bearing  what  an  honest  man  has  the  resolution  to  do. 
They  may  hinder  his  views  from  .gaining  full  success, 
but  they  cannot  destroy  the  moral  force  of  his  protest 
against  them,  and  at  any  rate  they  cannot  make  him 
do  their  work  without  his  own  co-operation."  Accord- 
ingly, though  debarred  by  his  occupations  at  Rugby 
from  making  more  than  two  or  three  short  visits  to 
London,  and  from  communicating  with  his  colleagues 
except  by  letter,  and  in  spite  of  the  want,  of  which  he 
was  now  painfully  conscious,  of  the  art  of  managing 
bodies  of  men,  with  whom  he  was  not  acquainted,  he 
so  far  succeeded,  as  on  December  2,  1837,  to  carry  a 
resolution,  "  That,  as  a  general  rule,  the  candidates  for 
the  Degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts  shall  pass  an  exami- 


22  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

nation  either  in  one  of  the  four  Gospels,  or  the  Acts  of 
the  Apostles  in  the  original  Greek,  and  also  in  Scrip- 
ture History."  This  measure  roused  great  objections, 
chiefly  on  the  ground  that  it  was  supposed  to  infringe 
on  the  original  principle  of  the  Charter  ;  which,  whilst 
it  spoke  of  intending  the  University  to  promote  "  re- 
ligion," spoke  also  of  its  comprehension  of  all  denom- 
inations. Partly,  in  consequence  of  remonstrances 
from  various  bodies  of  Dissenters,  and  from  the  Coun- 
cil of  University  College,  —  partly,  on  the  strong  rep- 
resentation of  the  Secretary  of  State,  through  whom 
an  appeal  had  been  made  by  the  remonstrants  to  the 
Law  Officers  of  tfce  Crown,  —  a  larger  meeting  was 
summoned  on  February  7th,  1838,  in  which  the  for- 
mer motion  was  overruled,  and  in  its  place  it  was  re- 
solved, "  That  examination  in  the  Hebrew  text  of  the 
Old  Testament,  and  in  the  Greek  text  of  the  New,  and 
in  Scripture  History,  shall  be  instituted  in  this  Univer- 
sity ;  to  be  followed  by  certificates  of  proficiency  ;  and 
that  all  candidates  for  Degrees  in  Arts  may,  if  they 
think  proper,  undergo  such  Examination." 

Although  feeling  that  the  principle  for  which  he 
contended  had  been  abandoned,  he  was  unwilling  for  a 
time  to  leave  the  Senate  ;  partly  from  reluctance  to 
take  a  step  as  a  private  individual,  which  might  seem 
like  a  censure  of  those  Bishops  who  still  felt  it  their 
duty  to  remain  on  the  Board ;  but  chiefly  with  a  hope 
of  rendering  this  Scriptural  Examination  as  efficient 
as  possible,  and  of  making  it  evident  that  the  Degree 
in  Arts  was  considered  incomplete  without  it.  Failing 
in  this,  partly  from  the  want  of  co-operation  in  the 
members  of  King's  College,  and  other  institutions 
subordinate  to  the  London  University,  partly  from  the 
active  opposition  in  the  Board  itself,  which  succeeded 
in  disuniting  the  Scriptural  Examination  altogether 
from  the  Degree,  ho  finally  withdrew  from  the  Senate 
in  November,  1838. 

The  only  permanent  result  of  his  efforts  was  the 
establishment  of  the  voluntary  Scriptural  Examina* 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  23 

tion.  But  the  whole  contest,  which  is  so  fully  de- 
scribed in  the  ensuing  letters  as  not  to  need  further 
comments  here,  was  one  of  the  most  characteristic 
passages  of  his  life.  It  was  the  only  occasion  on  which 
he  was  brought  into  direct  collision  with  the  extreme 
section  of  the  Liberal  party  ;  and  with  the  tendency  to 
keep  the  principles  of  the  Christian  Religion  distinct 
from  national  literature  and  education,  which  he  had 
long  regarded  as  a  great  and  growing  evil  in  English 
society.  Nor  was  it  the  less  interesting  at  this  time 
from  its  connection  with  his  longer  contest  with  the 
Oxford  School,  as  showing  how  his  antipathy  to  one 
extreme  had  only  made  his  antipathy  to  its  opposite 
more  intense  ;  how  strongly  he  felt  his  isolation  from 
both  parties,  when  he  was  almost  equally  condemned, 
in  London  as  a  bigot,  and  in  Oxford  as  a  latitudinariaii. 
On  either  side  his  public  and  private  experience  con- 
verged into  the  deep  feeling  expressed  in  one  of  his 
letters :  "  When  I  look  round  upon  boys  or  men, 
there  seems  to  me  some  one  point  or  quality,  which 
distinguishes  really  noble  persons  from  ordinary  ones  ; 
it  is  not  religious  feeling,  —  it  is  not  honesty  or  kind- 
ness ;  —  but  it  seems  to  me  to  be  moral  thoughtful- 
ness  ;  which  is  at  once  strengthening  and  softening 
and  elevating  ;  which  makes  a  man  love  Christ  instead 
of  being  a  fanatic,  and  love  truth  without  being  cold 
or  hard. 

CXII.      TO    MB.   JUSTICE    COLEEIDGE. 

Rugby,  November  18, 1835 

You  are  by  this  time,  I  suppose,  returned  to  London ;  and 
perhaps  you  may  wonder  what  induces  me  to  write  to  you 
again  so  soon.  My  reason  is,  that,  if  I  find  that  you  have 
tune  to  do  it,  I  meditate  a  yet  farther  encroachment  on  your 
leisure,  on  a  matter  of  public  interest,  as  I  think,  as  well  as 
one  which  concerns  me  personally.  The  "  Idea  "  of  my  life, 
to  which  I  think  every  thought  of  my  mind  more  or  less  tends, 
is  the  perfecting  the  "  idea  "  of  the  Edward  the  Sixth  Reform- 
ers, —  the  constructing  a  truly  national  and  Christian  Church, 
and  a  truly  national  and  Christian  system  of  education.  The 


24  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

more  immediate  question  now  is,  with  regard  to  the  latter. 
The  Address  of  the  House  of  Commons  about  the  London 
University,  is  to  be  answered  by  appointing  a  body  of  Exam- 
iners by  Royal  Charter,  with  power  to  confer  Degrees  in  Arts, 
Law,  and  Medicine,  on  students  of  the  London  University 
and  of  King's  College,  and  of  such  other  places  of  education 
as  the  Crown  from  time  to  tune  may  name.  I  have  accepted 
the  office  of  one  of  the  Examiners  in  Arts,  —  not  without 
much  hesitation,  and  many  doubts  of  the  success  of  the  plan,  — 
but  desirous,  if  possible,  to  exercise  some  influence  on  a  meas- 
ure which  seems  to  me  full  of  very  important  consequences 
for  good  or  for  evil.  Before  I  knew  anything  about  this,  I 
had  written  a  pamphlet  on  the  Admission  of  Dissenters  into 
the  Universities ;  not  meaning  to  publish  it  directly,  if  at  all ; 
but  wishing  to  embody  my  view  of  the  whole  question,  in 
which,  of  course,  I  take  the  deepest  interest.  Now,  if  I  act 
with  this  new  Board,  I  am  more  disposed  to  publish  my  own 
views  for  my  own  justification,  lest  any  man  should  think  me 
an  advocate  for  the  plan  of  National  Education  without  Chris- 
tianity ;  which  I  utterly  abhor.  But  I  am  well-nigh  driven 
beside  myself,  when  I  think  that  to  this  monstrosity  we  are 
likely  to  come  ;  because  the  zealots  of  different  sects  (includ- 
ing in  this  term  the  Establishment,  pace  Archiepiscopi  Can- 
tuarensis,)  will  have  no  Christianity  without  Sectarianism. 

Now,  if  you  have  time  to  look  at  it,  I  should  like  to  send 
you  up  my  MS.  for  your  full  and  free  comments,  including 
also  your  opinion  as  to  the  expediency  of  publication  or  no. 
Tell  me  also,  particularly,  what  points  need  fuller  develop- 
ment I  have  so  thought  over  the  whole  question,  and  believe 
that  I  see  my  way  in  it  so  clearly,  that  I  may  perhaps  state, 
as  self-evident  propositions,  things  which  to  others  may  be 
startling.  Our  Church  now  has  a  strict  bond  in  matters  of 
opinion,  and  none  at  all  in  matters  of  practice  ;  which  seems 
to  me  a  double  error.  The  Apostles  began  with  the  most 
general  of  all  bonds  in  point  of  opinion  —  the  simple  confes- 
sion that  Jesus  was  the  Son  of  God  —  not  that  they  meant  to 
rest  there  ;  but  that,  if  you  organize  and  improve  the  Church 
morally,  you  will  improve  its  tone  theoretically  ;  till  you  get 
an  agreement  in  what  is  essential  Christian  principle,  and  a 
perfect  tolerance  of  differences  in  unessential  opinions.  But 
now,  the  true  and  grand  idea  of  a  Church,  that  is,  a  society 
for  the  purpose  of  making  men  like  Christ,  —  earth  like 
heaven,  —  the  kingdoms  of  the  world  the  kingdom  of  Christ, 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  25 

~—  is  all  lost ;  and  men  look  upon  it  as  "  an  institution  for  re» 
ligious  instruction  and  religious  worship,"  thus  robbing  it  of 
its  life  and  universality,  making  it  an  affair  of  clergy,  not  of 
people,  —  of  preaching  and  ceremonies,  not  of  living,  —  of 
Sundays  and  synagogues,  instead  of  one  of  all  days  and  all 
places,  houses,  streets,  towns,  and  country.  I  believe  that  the 
Government  are  well  disposed,  and  I  wish  at  any  rate  to  "try 
them.  I  know  at  least  what  I  mean  myself,  and  have  a  defi- 
nite object  before  me,  which,  if  I  cannot  reach,  I  would  at 
least  come  as  near  to  it  as  I  can. 

CXIII.       TO    REV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

Rugby,  November  4, 1835. 

[After  stating  his  acceptance  of  the  office  in  the  London 
University.]  I  hold  myself  bound  to  influence,  so  far  as  I 
may  be  able,  the  working  of  a  great  experiment,  which  will 
probably  in  the  end  affect  the  whole  education  of  the  country. 
I  hold  myself  bound  to  prevent,  so  far  as  in  me  lies,  the  es- 
tablishment of  more  sectarian  places  of  education,  which  will 
be  the  case  if  you  have  regular  colleges  for  Dissenters  ;  and 
yet  Dissenters  must  and  ought  to  have  Degrees ;  and  you 
shut  them  out  from  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  No  man  can 
feel  more  strongly  than  I  do  the  necessary  imperfection  of  the 
proposed  system,  and  its  certain  inferiority  to  what  the  old 
Universities  might  be  made,  or  even  to  what  they  are,  I  sup- 
pose, actually.  No  man  can  more  dread  the  co-operators  with 
whom  I  may  possibly  have  to  work,  or  the  principle  which  an 
active  party  are  endeavoring  to  carry  into  education,  that  it 
shall  or  can  exist  independent  of  Christianity.  But  the  ex- 
cuse of  these  men,  and  their  probable  success,  arises  out  of 
the  Oxford  sectarianism.  You  have  identified  Christianity 
with  the  Church  of  England,  and  —  as  there  are  many  who 
will  not  bear  the  latter  —  indifferent  men,  or  unbelievers,  be- 
lieve that  it  must  follow  that  they  cannot  be  taught  the  for> 
mer.  The  question  goes  through  the  whole  frame  of  our 
society.  Nothing  more  reasonable  than  that  national  educa- 
tion should  be  in  accordance  with  the  national  religion ; 
nothing  more  noble  or  more  wise  in  my  judgment  than  the 
whole  theory  of  the  Reformers  on  this  point.  But  the  Estab- 
lished Church  is  only  the  religion  of  a  part  of  the  nation,  and 
there  is  the  whole  difficulty.  The  Reformers,  or  rather  their 
successors  in  Elizabeth's  time,  wished  to  root  out  Dissent  by 

VOL.    II.  3 


26  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

the  strong  hand.  This  was  wicked,  as  I  think,  as  well  as 
foolish :  but  then,  if  we  do  not  root  out  Dissent,  and  so  keep 
the  Establishment  coextensive  with  the  nation,  we  must  ex- 
tend the  Establishment,  or  else  in  the  end  there  will  and 
ought  to  be  no  Establishment  at  all,  which  I  consider  as  one 
of  the  greatest  of  all  evils.  But  I  see  everything  tending  to 
sectarianism;  and  I  heard  a  very  good  man  speaking  with 
complacency  of  this  state  of  things  in  America,  where  the 
different  sects,  it  seems,  are  becoming  more  and  more  sepa- 
rated from  each  other.  And  this  is  a  natural  and  sure  con- 
sequence of  having  no  Establishment,  because  then  the  narrow- 
mindedness  of  every  sect  plays  out  its  own  play,  and  there  is 
no  great  external  reason  for  union.  But  on  the  present  Ox- 
ford system  or  spirit,  the  Establishment  is  merely  identified 
with  a  party,  and  makes  half  the  nation  regard  it  as  a  nuisance. 
I  believe  that  that  party  and  the  party  of  the  Dissenters  are 
alike  detestable,  alike  ignorant,  narrow-minded,  and  unchris- 
tian ;  only  the  Church  party  are  the  least  excusable,  because 
they  sin  against  far  greater  opportunities  and  means  of  light. 
My  own  firm  belief  is,  that  every  difference  of  opinion  amongst 
Christians  is  either  remediable  by  time  and  mutual  fairness, 
or  else  is  indifferent ;  and  this,  I  believe,  would  be  greatly 
furthered,  if  we  would  get  rid  entirely  of  the  false  traditional 
standard  of  interpretation,  and  interpret  Scripture  solely  by 
itself.  I  think  that  in  your  Sermon  on  Unauthoritative 
Tradition,  you  have  unawares  served  the  cause  of  error  and 
schism ;  for  I  should  just  reverse  that  argument,  and  — 
instead  of  saying  that  we  should  bring  in  tradition  to  teach 
certain  doctrines,  which  Scripture  appears  to  recognize,  but 
does  not  clearly  develop  —  I  should  say,  that,  because  Scrip- 
ture does  not  clearly  develop  them,  therefore  they  ought  not  to 
be  taught  as  essential,  nor  with  any  greater  degree  of  precision 
than  is  to  be  found  in  Scripture :  and  then  I  believe  that  we 
should  have  Christian  truth  exactly  in  its  own  proper  propor- 
tions ;  —  what  is  plain,  and  what  is  essential,  being  in  effect 
convertible  terms ;  whereas,  I  am  satisfied,  that  Church 
authority,  whether  early  or  late,  is  as  rotten  a  staff  as  ever 
was  Pharaoh  king  of  Egypt's,  —  it  will  go  into  a  man's  hand 
to  pierce  him. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  27 


CXIV.      TO    REV.   F.    C.   BLACKSTONE. 

Rugby,  November  11,  1835. 

My  attention  has  been  drawn  lately,  by  one  or  two 

circumstances,  to  the  spread  of  Henry  Drummond's  party, 
who  claim  to  possess  a  renewal  of  the  spiritual  gifts  of  the 
Apostolic  age,  and  as  a  consequence,  call  themselves  the  only 
true  Church.  I  should  like  to  know  whether  you  have  lately 
heard  any  more  of  the  question,  or  have  seen  any  reason 
to  alter  your  views  about  it.  The  intolerance  of  their  pre- 
sumption in  calling  themselves  the  only  true  Church,  would, 
to  my  mind,  go  very  near  to  decide  against  them ;  but  in  all 
respects  they  seem  to  me  to  resemble  those  fanatical  sects, 
which  have  from  time  to  time  arisen,  and  will  do  so  to  the  end 
of  the  world.  But  with  regard  to  the  cessation  of  the  mirac- 
ulous powers  in  the  Church,  which  I  think  at  first  sight  is 
startling,  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that  it  is  truly  accounted 
for  by  the  supposition  that  none  but  the  Apostles  ever  con- 
ferred these  gifts,  and  that  therefore  they  ceased  of  course 
after  one  generation.  I  do  not  think  that  the  state  of  the 
Apostolical  Churches  was  so  pure,  or  that  of  the  Churches  in 
the  next  century  so  degenerate,  as  to  account  for  the  with- 
drawal of  the  gifts  as  a  sign  of  God's  displeasure,  seeing  that 
the  graces  of  the  Spirit  were  then  and  ever  have  been  vouch- 
safed abundantly,  —  which  is  inconsistent  with  the  notion  of 
God's  abandonment.  Nor  do  I  see  that  the  Church  of  Christ 
has  at  any  time  plainly  apostatized,  although  it  has  been 
greatly  unworthy  of  its  privileges  ;  nor  that  the  doctrine  of 
Christ  crucified  and  Christ  risen,  has  been  so  forsaken,  as 
that  the  very  standard  of  Christianity  should  need  to  be 
planted  afresh.  But,  if  so,  then  the  parallel  with  the  Jewish 
Church  fails  ;  for  the  final  guilt  of  the  Jewish  Church  con- 
sisted in  refusing  to  admit  of  the  full  development  of  its 
system,  as  wrought  in  Christ ;  and  therefore,  without  aposta- 
tizing from  the  old,  they  fell  because  they  refused  the  new. 
But  ours  being  the  dispensation  of  the  fulness  of  times,  a  new 
system  is  with  us  not  to  be  looked  for ;  and,  if  we  hold  fast 
the  principles  of  the  Gospel,  we  have  no  other  object  to  look 
to  than  that  great  one,  which  indeed  has  been  enough  neg- 
lected, —  the  working  out  and  carrying  into  all  earthly  insti- 
tutions the  practical  fruits  of  these  principles.*  I  have  always 

*  See  Appendix  1.  to  "  Fragment  on  the  Church." 


28  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

thought  that  the  Quakers  stand  nobly  distinguished  from  the 
multitude  of  fanatics,  by  seizing  the  true  point  of  Christian 
advancement,  —  the  development  of  the  principles  of  the 
Gospel  in  the  moral  improvement  of  mankind.  It  is  a  griev- 
ous pity  that  some  foolishnesses  should  have  so  marred  their 
efficiency,  or  their  efforts  against  wars  and  oaths  would  surely 
ere  this  have  been  more  successful. 

CXV.      TO   MR.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  December  16,  1835. 

It  is  ill  answering  your  long  and  kind  letter  between  nine 
and  ten  o'clock  at  night,  when  I  am  liable  to  be  interrupted 
every  moment  by  calls  from  my  boys  who  are  going  home,  and 
when  I  am  going  myself  to  start  with  a  patriarchal  party  of 
seventeen  souls  at  seven  o'clock  to-morrow  for  Westmoreland. 
I  think  that  there  runs  through  your  letter,  perhaps  uncon- 
sciously, a  constant  assumption  that  the  Conservative  party  is 
the  orthodox  one ;  a  very  natural  assumption  in  the  friends  of 
an  existing  system,  or,  as  I  think,  in  any  one  who  has  not  sat- 
isfied himself,  as  I  have,  that  Conservatism  is  always  wrong ; 
so  thoroughly  wrong  in  principle,  that,  even  when  the  partic- 
ular reform  proposed  may  be  by  no  means  the  best  possible, 
yet  it  is  good  as  a  triumph  over  Conservatism; — the  said 
Conservatism  being  the  worst  extreme,  according  to  both  of 
Aristotle's  definitions,  first,  as  most  opposed  to  the  mean  in 
itself,  since  man  became  corrupt ;  and  secondly,  as  being  the 
evil  that  we  are  all  most  prone  to  —  I  myself  being  conserva- 
tive in  all  my  instincts,  and  only  being  otherwise  by  an  effort 
of  my  reason  or  principle,  as  one  overcomes  all  one's  other 
bad  propensities.  I  think  Conservatism  far  worse  than  Tory- 
ism, if  by  Toryism  be  meant  a  fondness  for  monarchical  or 
even  despotic  government  t  for  despotism  may  often  further  the 
advance  of  a  nation,  and  a  good  dictatorship  may  be  a  very 
excellent  thing,  as  I  believe  of  Louis  Philippe's  government 
at  this  moment,  thinking  Guizot  to  be  a  great  and  good  man 
who  is  looking  steadily  forwards ;  but  Conservatism  always 
looks  backwards,  and  therefore,  under  whatever  form  of  gov- 
ernment, I  think  it  the  enemy  of  all  good.  And  if  you  ask  me 
how  I  can  act  with  the  present  Ministers,  with  many  of  whom 
I  am  far  from  sympathizing,  I  answer,  that  I  would  act  with 
them  against  the  Conservatives  as  Cranmer  and  Ridley  acted 
with  Somerset  and  Northumberland  and  the  Russells  of  that 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  29 

day,  not  as  thinking  them  the  best  or  wisest  of  men,  but  as 
men  who  were  helping  forward  the  cause  of  Reform  against 
Conservatism,  and  who  therefore  were  serving  the  cause  of 
their  country  and  of  mankind,  when  Fisher  and  More  and 
Tonstall,  better  men  individually,  would  have  grievously  in- 
jured both.  This  I  should  say,  even  if  I  judged  of  the  two 

parties  as  you  do But  I  am  running  on  unreasonably, 

and  time  is  precious ;  my  meaning  is,  that  had  I  been  a  Con- 
servative, I*  am  quite  sure  that  no  act  of  mine  would  have 
ever  been  considered  as  going  out  of  my  way  into  politics ; 
but  on  the  other  side,  "  defendit  numerus ; "  and  that  is  called 
zeal  for  the  Church,  which  in  me  is  called  political  violence. 
We  are  all  well,  and  I  am  marvellously  untired  by  our  five 
weeks'  examination ;  but  I  still  expect  to  rejoice  in  the  moun- 
tains. 

CXVI.      TO.    W.   EMPSON,   ESQ. 

January  8,  1836. 

I  find  even  in  private  life,  and  amongst  men  of  the 

Tory  party  who  are  most  favorable  specimens  of  it,  a  tone 
of  increased  virulence,  interfering  even  with  private  relations, 
which  really  seems  almost  like  the  harbinger  of  civil  war.  lu 
London,  I  have  no  doubt  all  this,  externally  at  least,  is  soft- 
ened ;  but  in  the  country,  where  men  live  more  apart,  their 
passion  seems  to  me  to  be  daily  exasperating,  and  any  inter- 
ruption of  the  present  commercial  prosperity  would  find,  I 
fear,  a  bitter  temper  already  existing  to  receive  the  increased 
embittering  of  private  distress.  My  great  fear  is,  that  the 
English  are  indifferent  to  justice  when  it  is  not  on  their  own 
side,  and  that  therefore  in  this  Irish  Church  question  the  Min- 
isters will  fare  as  Lord  Chatham  did  in  the  beginning  of  the 
American  war,  be  outvoted,  overruled,  and  driven  from  power. 
And  then  what  is  the  "  Avenir  "  which  any  Tory  can  image  to 
himself  within  the  very  limits  of  possibility  ?  For  whether 
Ireland  remain  in  its  present  barbarism,  or  grow  in  health  and 
civilization,  in  either  case  the  downfall  of  the  present  Estab- 
lishment is  certain ;  a  savage  people  will  not  endure  the  insult 
of  a  hostile  religion ;  a  civilized  one  will  reasonably  insist  on 
having  their  own. 


3* 


80  LIFE  OF  DR.   ABNOLD. 


CXVII.      TO    CHEVALIER    BUN8EN. 

Fox  How,  February  1, 1836. 

Let  me  thank  you  again  and  again  for  your  dedi- 
cation of  the  Article  on  the  Sabine  cities,  for  it  roused  me  to 
go  to  work  in  good  earnest,  and  I  can  now  tell  you  that,  having 
begun  with  ^Eneas,  I  have  fairly  brought  down  the  history  to 
the  institution  of  the  Tribuneship.  I  believe  I  have  never 
written  without  thinking  of  you,  and  wishing  to  be  able  to  ask 
you  questions ;  you  must  expect,  therefore,  presently  to  have 
a  string  of  interrogatories,  after  I  have  first  told  you  the  plan 

and  contents  of  what  I  have  hitherto  done I  need 

not  tell  you  how  entirely  I  have  fed  upon  Niebuhr ;  in  fact,  I 
have  done  little  more  than  put  his  first  volume  into  a  shape 
more  fit  for  general,  or  at  least  for  English  readers,  assuming 
his  conclusions  as  proved,  where  he  was  obliged  to  give  the 
proof  in  detail.  I  suppose  that  he  must  have  shared  so  much  of 
human  infirmity  as  to  have  fallen  sometimes  into  error ;  but  I 
confess  that  I  do  not  yet  know  a  single  point  on  which  I  have 
ventured  to  differ  from  him ;  and  my  respect  for  him  so  in- 
creases the  more  I  study  him,  that  I  am  likely  to  grow  even 
superstitious  in  my  veneration,  and  to  be  afraid  of  expressing 

my  dissent  even  if  I  believe  him  to  be  wrong 

Though  I  deeply  feel  my  own  want  of  knowledge,  yet  I  know 
of  no  one  in  England  who  can  help  me ;  so  little  are  we  on  a 
level  with  you  in  Germany  in  our  attention  to  such  points. 
What  would  I  give  to  recover  the  History  of  Sisenna,  or  any 
contemporary  account  of  the  war  of  Marius  and  Sylla !  Once 
more,  is  anything  doing  about  deciphering  the  Etruscan  or 
Oscan  languages,  and  what  authority  is  there  for  making  the 
Oscan  and  Sabellian  tribes  distinct?  whereas  I  cannot  but 
think  they  all  belong  to  one  stock,  distinct  from  the  Latins  on 
one  hand,  and  from  the  Etruscans  on  the  other. 

I  will  now  release  you  from  the  Roman  History.  I  am  also 
engaged  upon  the  three  Pastoral  Epistles,  as  I  believe  I  told 
you.  Do  not  all  the  three  Epistles  appear  to  belong  to  a  pe- 
riod in  Paul's  life  later  than  that  recorded  in  the  Acts ;  and 
must  they  not  have  been  written  nearly  at  the  same  time  ?  In 
the  1st  Timothy  iii.  15,  do  you  approve  of  Griesbach's  stop- 
ping of  the  passage  when  he  joins  the  words  orvXoff  ical  f8paio>fj.a 
•njs  d\T]0(iits  with  the  following  verse  ?  I  cannot  well  make 
up  my  mind,  whether  to  agree  with  it  or  no ;  but  it  is  certain, 
that  if  the  words  are  to  be  applied  to  the  Church,  they  do  not 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD  31 

describe  what  it  is  de  facto,  but  what  it  ought  to  be.  "  Take 
care  that  no  error  through  thy  fault  creep  into  that  Church 
which  was  designed  by  God  to  be  nothing  but  a  pillar  and 
basis  of  truth."  Then  fjLvcrrrjpiov  rfjs  tva-epfias  may  fitly  be  trans- 
lated, I  suppose,  the  "Revelation  of  Christianity,  the  secret 
which  Christianity  has  to  impart  to  its  own  initiated."  The 

/ivcrrijptoi'   TT)s   evcrepdas  is    Christ,  as  the  /iuorjjpioi/  TTJS  avo^ias  is 

Antichrist.  Here  again  I  must  stop,  though  I  have  much 
more  to  say.  I  look  forward  with  great  pleasure  to  your 
son's  *  joining  us  in  June,  and  seeing  this  delicious  country 
with  us  in  July.  But  five  long  months  of  work  intervene  be- 
tween this  present  time  and  our  summer  holidays.  May 
Christ's  Spirit  enable  me  to  turn  them  to  profit,  if  I  am  per- 
mitted to  live  through  them. 

CXVIII.      TO   J.    C.    PLATT,   ESQ. 

Fox  How,  February  5,  1836. 

I  was  very  much  pleased  with  the  pamphlet  of 

Dr.  Lieber  about  Education,  and  thought  him  the  more  worthy 
of  having  had  so  much  intercourse  with  Niebuhr.  I  entirely 
agree  with  what  Dr.  Lieber  says,  and  wish  that  people  were 
more  aware  of  the  truth  of  it  in  England.  We  are  going, 
however,  to  have  a  very  important  experiment  begun  here, 
in  the  new  London  University ;  of  which,  as  you  may  have 
perhaps  heard,  I  am  likely,  if  the  present  Government  stands, 
to  become  one  of  the  members.  There  will  then  probably 
be  brought  to  issue  this  great  question,  whether  the  people 
of  England  have  any  value  whatever  for  Christianity  without 
sectarianism ;  for,  as  it  seems  to  me,  most  of  those  who  are 
above  sectarianism  are  quite  as  indifferent  to  Christianity; 
while  almost  all  who  profess  to  value  Christianity  seem,  when 
they  are  brought  to  the  test,  to  care  only  for  their  own  sect. 
Now  it  is  manifest  to  me  that  all  our  education  must  be 
Christian,  and  not  be  sectarian ;  I  would  ask  no  questions  as 
to  what  denomination  of  Christians  any  student  belonged ;  or, 
if  I  did,  I  should  only  do  it  for  the  express  purpose  of  avoid- 
ing in  my  examination  all  those  particular  points,  in  which  I 
might  happen  to  differ  from  him.  But  I  should  as  certainly 


*  Henry,  the  eldest  son  of  the  Chevalier  Bunsen,  was  for  two  years  an 
inmate  of  Dr.  Arnold's  house  at  Rugby,  preparatory  to  his  entering  on  the 
studies  of  Oxford,  and  taking  orders  in  the  Church  of  England. 


32  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

assume  him  to  be  a  Christian,  and  both  in  examining  him  in 
the  Scriptures,  as  well  as  in  the  philosophy  and  history  of 
other  writers,  I  should  proceed  on  the  supposition  that  Ins 
views  of  life  were  Christian,  and  should  think  it  quite  right 
to  inquire  what  was  his  knowledge  of  the  evidences  and 
nature  of  the  Christian  scheme.  I  see  that  a  Jew  has  just 
been  elected  a  governor  of  Christ's  Hospital ;  the  very  name 
shows  the  monstrousness  of  this ;  but  what  shall  we  say  of 
the  wisdom  of  those  who  say  that  a  Roman  Catholic  or  an 
Unitarian  is  as  bad  as  a  Jew,  and  who  thus  drive  other  men 
to  say  that,  as  some  pretended  religious  distinctions  are  no 
real  moral  distinctions,  so  all  religious  distinctions  are  unim- 
portant ;  and  Jew,  Mahometan,  Hindoo,  or  Benthamite,  may 
all  be  educated  together?  No  doubt  they  may  be  taught 
physical  science  together ;  but  physical  science  is  not  educa- 
tion ;  and  how  they  can  be  instructed  in  moral  science 
together,  when  their  views  of  life  are  so  different^  is  a  thing 

that  I  cannot  understand I  am   satisfied   that   the 

real  good  must  be  done  through  something  in  the  form  of  a 
Newspaper  or  Historical  Magazine.  You  must  begin  with 
teaching  people  to  understand,  if  you  can,  what  they  will  feel 
an  interest  in  and  talk  about ;  it  is  of  no  use  to  attempt  to 
create  an  interest  for  indifferent  things,  natural  history,  or 
general  literature,  which  every  sensible  man  feels  to  be  the 
play  of  life  and  not  its  business.  I  hold  with  Algernon 
Sidney,  that  there  are  but  two  things  of  vital  importance,  — 
those  which  he  calls  Religion  and  Politics,  but  which  I  would 
rather  call  our  duties  and  affections  towards  God,  and  our 
duties  and  feelings  towards  men ;  science  and  literature  are 
but  a  poor  make  up  for  the  want  of  these. 

I  have  been  at  work  on  the  Roman  History  with  very  great 
delight,  and  also  with  a  part  of  the  New  Testament.  I  have 
begun  the  Roman  History  from  the  beginning,  and  I  could 
not  have  any  work  which  I  should  more  enjoy ;  if  I  live,  I 
hope  to  carry  on  the  History  till  the  sixth  century,  and  end 
it  with  the  foundation  of  the  modern  kingdoms  out  of  the 
wreck  of  the  Western  Empire.  Pray  let  me  hear  of  you 
when  you  can,  and  believe  me  that  I  shall  always  feel  a  very 
lively  interest  in  your  proceedings. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  33 

CXIX.       TO    MR.    JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  March  2,  1836. 

I  erred  in  sending  you  my  manuscript ;  not  that  I  do  not 
heartily  thank  you  for  your  comments,  which  as  to  the  good 
of  the  work  itself  were  more  useful  than  if  you  had  more 
agreed  with  me ;  but  I  would  not  for  the  sake  of  an  hypo- 
thetical publication  have  caused  you  to  dwell  on  page  after 
page  of  matter  in  which  you  could  not  sympathize,  and  which 
I  fear  grated  harshly  upon  your  notions  and  tastes.  I  did  it 
in  ignorance  ;  for  I  really  fancied,  —  without  any  authority,  I 
believe  —  but  still  I  fancied  that  you  agreed  with  me  as  to  the 
desirableness  of  opening  the  Universities,  and  would  sympa- 
thize, therefore,  in  the  general  drift  of  what  I  had  written. 
Otherwise  I  should  not  have  thought  it  fair  to  trouble  you 
with  it. 

But  the  whole  thing  makes  me  most  earnest  that  we  should 
soon  meet,  not  to  argue,  but  rather  to  feel  the  many  points  of 
true  sympathy  between  us,  and  to  get  our  notions  of  each 
other  refreshed,  so  to  speak,  in  all  their  totality.  You  get 
from  me  two  or  three  letters  a  year ;  in  these  I  cannot  repre- 
sent what  is  really  my  life's  business  and  state  of  mind,  for 
school  affairs  would  not  interest  you,  nor  will  the  quiet 
scenes  of  mere  family  life  bear  description.  I  therefore  write 
naturally  of  public  matters,  of  questions  of  general  interest ; 
and  I  write  upon  them  as  I  feel,  that  is,  decidedly  and  deeply. 
But  this  produces  a  false  impression  upon  your  mind,  as  if 
these  feelings  occupied  me  predominantly,  and  you  express  a 
wish  that  I  would  concentrate  my  energies  upon  the  school, 
my  own  business.  Why  you  cannot  surely  think  that  Hawtrey 
or  your  brother  Edward  or  any  man  in  England  does  so  more 
than  I  do?  I  should  feel  it  the  greatest  possible  reproach, 
if  I  were  conscious  of  doing  otherwise.  But  although  a 
school,  like  a  parish  or  any  other  occupation  in  which  our 
business  is  to  act  morally  upon  our  neighbors,  affords  in 
fact  infinite  employment,  and  no  man  can  ever  say  that  he 
has  done  all  that  he  might  do,  —  still,  in  the  common  sense  of 
the  term,  I  can  truly  say,  that  I  live  for  the  school ;  that 
very  pamphlet  which  I  sent  you  was  written  almost  entirely 
at  Fox  How,  and  my  own  employment  here  has  been  all  of 
a  kind  to  bear  directly  upon  the  school  work  ;  first  Thucydides, 
and  now  the  Roman  History,  and  subjects  more  or  less  con- 
nected with  the  Scriptures,  or  else  my  Sermons.  Undoubtedly, 


34  LIFE   OF  DB.  ARNOLD. 

I  do  not  wish  ray  mind  to  feel  less  or  to  think  less  upon 
public  matters  ;  ere  it  does  so,  its  powers  must  be  paralyzed  ; 
and  I  am  sure  that  the  more  active  my  own  mind  is,  and  the 
more  it  works  upon  great  moral  and  political  points,  the 
better  for  the  school ;  not,  of  course,  for  the  folly  of  pros- 
elytizing the  boys,  but  because  education  is  a  dynamical, 
not  a  mechanical  process,  and  the  more  powerful  and  vigorous 
the  mind  of  the  teacher,  the  more  clearly  and  readily  he  can 
grasp  things,  the  better  fitted  he  is  to  cultivate  the  mind  of 
another.  And  to  this  I  find  myself  coming  more  and  more : 
I  care  less  and  less  for  information,  more  and  more  for  the 
pure  exercise  of  the  mind ;  for  answering  a  question  con- 
cisely and  comprehensively,  for  showing  a  command  of  lan- 
guage, a  delicacy  of  taste,  and  a  comprehensiveness  of  thought 
and  power  of  combination. 

We  had  a  most  delightful  winter  at  Fox  How 

I  went  over  to  Keswick  for  one  day,  and  called  on  Southey 
and  saw  him  and  his  daughters  Kate  and  Bertha.  Southey  is 
much  altered  from  his  heavy  domestic  trial,  and  perhaps  from 
his  constant  occupations.  He  reads  as  he  walks,  which  I 
told  him  I  would  not  venture  to  do,  though  so  much  younger 
than  he  was  ;  it  is  so  constant  a  strain,  that  I  do  not  wonder 

that   his   hah*   is   gray What   a  great   man   your 

uncle  was,  that  is,  intellectually !  for  something  I  suppose 
must  have  been  wanting  to  hinder  us  from  calling  him  a  great 
man  dir\£>s .  But  where  has  he  left  his  equal  ? 

CXX.      *TO    C.   J.   VAUGHAN,    ESQ. 

(On  his  success  at  Cambridge.) 

Rugby,  March  7, 1836. 

I  gave  myself  the  pleasure  of  writing  to  Mrs.  Vaughan  a 
few  lines  on  Friday  evening,  which  I  thought  you  would 
prefer  to  my  writing  to  yourself.  But  you  know  how  heartily 
I  should  rejoice  at  your  success,  and  I  thank  you  very  much 
for  your  kind  letter  to  inform  me  of  it. 

I  am  truly  glad  indeed  and  thankful  that  you  have  done  so 
well,  and  I  thank  you  for  the  credit  which  you  have  conferred 
upon  Rugby.  I  am  very  glad  that  you  are  coming  to  us  in 
June,  a  time  when  I  hope  to  enjoy  your  company  far  more 
than  in  the  Babel  at  Easter.  It  will  be  a  great  pleasure  to 
me  to  have  some  conversation  with  you  again  after  the  lapse 
of  a  year,  a  period  which  brings  such  clianges  in  all  our  minds, 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  35 

and,  till  our  faculties  decay,  changes  surely  for  the  better, 
unless  we  wilfully  let  the  ground  lie  fallow,  or  plant  it  with 
weeds.  And  it  is  to  me  a  matter  of  intense  interest  to  ob- 
serve the  ripening  manhood  of  those  minds,  in  whose  earlier 
opening  I  felt  so  deep  and  affectionate  a  sympathy.  My  wife 
and  all  the  children  rejoice  in  your  success,  and  unite  in 
kindest  regards. 

CXXI.       TO    AN    OLD    PTTPIL.     (B.) 

Rugby,  March  9,  1836. 

I  am  far  more  pleased  than  disappointed  about  the  scholar- 
ship ;  I  am  very  much  pleased  that  both  you  and have 

done  so  well.  I  am  not  disappointed,  because  I  always  think 
that  in  every  election  the  chances  must  be  against  any  one 

candidate.  I  wish  you  would  impress  this  on ,  from  me ; 

for  I  am  a  little  afraid  that  Vaughan's  success  at  Cambridge 
will  make  him  over  anxious,  and  that  he  will  fancy  that  he  is 
the  more  expected  to  get  it,  in  order  to  complete  the  triumph 
of  Rugby.  This  is  not  my  feeling,  and  I  cannot  bear  that  he 
should  be  oppressed  with  the  weight  of  our  unreasonable  ex- 
pectations when  I  know  how  much  anxiety  he  has  of  his  own. 
Come  to  us  whenever  you  can,  and  find  it  most  convenient : 
we  shall  be  equally  glad  to  see  you  at  any  time. 

And  now  for  your  Oxford  agitators.  If  I  were  really  as 
anxious  to  make  proselytes  as  some  fancy,  I  should  be  much 
grieved  at  what  I  should  then  call  your  defection ;  but  as  it 
is  I  am  well  content  that  you  should  so  love  Oxford  at  present, 
as  to  feel  sympathy  even  for  her  extravagances :  it  is  such  a 
symptom  as  I  hail  with  very  great  satisfaction,  and  I  exhib- 
ited it  myself  when  I  was  in  your  situation.  I  should  there- 
fore be  well  enough  inclined  to  let  this  right  itself  by  and  by ; 
only  in  such  turbulent  times  you  must  be  aware  lest  you  are 
tempted,  not  only  <rvp.<j>i\flv  rois  o^wiavois  dXXa  Kal  <rvpiJii(Tfiv, 
and  that  I  think  would  be  an  injustice.  I  think  also  that  the 
habit  of  making  a  man  an  offender  for  a  word  is  most  injuri- 
ous to  ourselves, —  remember  the  calumnies  and  insinuations 
against  Niebuhr.  Again,  no  man's  mind  can  be  fairly  judged 
of  by  such  a  specimen  as  Newman  has  given  of  Hampden's. 
He  lia-  in  several  places  omitted  sentences  in  his  quotations, 
which  give  exactly  the  soft  and  Christian  effect  to  what  with- 
out them  sounds  hard  and  cold Again,  it  will  never 

do  to  judge  a  man,  not  for  the  opinions  which  he  holds,  but 


86  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

for  the  degree  of  condemnation  which  he  passes  on  the  oppo- 
site opinions,  6  ntv  xa\cnaiva>v  TTiorof  ad  6  8'  avriXtyuv  avry 
viroirros.*  But  to  whom  are  they  iricrrot  and  vrrvrrroi  ?  Not 
to  the  wise  and  good,  but  to  the  unprincipled  or  fanatical  par- 
tisan, who  knows  not  what  truth  and  goodness  are.  Poor 
Jeremy  Taylor  understood  well  this  intolerance  of  toleration, 
when  he  thought  it  necessary  to  append  to  his  Liberty  of 
Prophesying  a  long  argument  against  the  truth  of  the  Baptist 
opinions,  because  he  had  been  earnestly  arguing  that,  although 
untrue,  they  were  neither  punishable  nor  damnable.  You 
have  always  heard  me,  and  I  hope  I  shall  always  be  heard,  to 
insist  upon  the  Divinity  of  Christ  as  the  great  point  of  Chris- 
tianity ;  but  it  is  because  I  think  that  the  Scholastic  Theology 
has  obscured  and  excited  a  prejudice  against  it,  that  I  am 
rather  thankful  myself  for  having  been  enabled  to  receive 
Scripture  truth  in  spite  of  the  wrapping  which  has  been  put 
round  it,  than  I  can  condemn  those  who  throw,  away  the 
wrapping,  and  cannot  conceive  that  beneath  a  shell  so  worth- 
less there  can  lurk  so  divine  a  kernel.  Then  as  to  "  danger- 
ousness."  There  is  an  immense  danger  in  folly,  or  in  the 
careless  tone  of  a  man  who  never  seemed  in  earnest ;  or  in 
the  trash  of  a  fanatic.  Hampden  is  a  good  man,  and  an  able 
one ;  a  lover  of  truth  and  fairness ;  and  I  should  think  that 
the  wholesome  air  of  such  a  man's  lectures  would  tend  to 
freshen  men's  faith,  and  assure  them  that  it  had  a  foundation 
to  rest  upon,  when  the  infinite  dishonesty  and  foolery  of  such 
divinity  as  I  remember  in  the  lecture-rooms  and  pulpits  in 
times  past,  would  be  enough  to  drive  a  man  of  sound  mind 

into  any  extravagances  of  unbelief. Hampden's  Bamp- 

ton  Lectures  are  a  great  work,  entirely  true  in  their  main 

points,  and  I  think  most  useful But  it  is  merely  like 

the  cry  of  Oxford  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  ago,  when  the 
lower  House  of  Convocation  condemned  Burnet's  Exposition 
of  the  Articles.  So  always  in  the  course  of  human  things, 
the  tail  labors  to  sting  the  head. 

CXXII.      TO    W.    W.   HULL,  ESQ. 

Rugby,  March  17, 1836. 

The  question  about  Hampden  seems  to  me  simple.  If  he 
has  preached  or  published  heresy,  let  him  be  tried  by  the 
proj>er  judge  or  judges,  either  the  Bishop  or,  as  Hawkins 

*  Tlmcyd.  III.  82. 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  37 

says,  the  Vice-Chancellor,  assisted  by  six  Doctors  of  Divinity. 
What  they  are  now  doing  is  merely  Lynch  law ;  and  they 
might  just  as  well  run  down  any  other  man  who  is  unpopular 
with  the  dominant  party  in  Oxford,  and  say  that  they  have  no 
confidence  in  him,  and  therefore  pass  a  privilegium  against 
him  without  giving  him  any  trial.  It  is  making  the  legislative 
power  encroach  on  the  judicial  with  a  vengeance,  and  there- 
fore I  would  go  up  to  vote  for  Pusey,  NeWman,*  Vaughan 
Thomas,  or  any  other  whom  I  deem  the  most  unfit  man  in 
Oxford,  if  a  Tory  ministry  had  appointed  them,  and  a  Whig 
majority  in  Convocation  were  to  press  for  a  similar  stigma 
against  them  on  a  charge  which  has  never  been  tried,  and 
which  Convocation  is  not  competent  to  try.  I  will  add,  how- 
ever, that  I  agree  for  the  most  part  with  Hampden's  views. 

Hawkins  has  stood  the  storm  nobly  by  Hampden's 

side. 

CXXIII.      TO    THE    SAME. 

Rugby,  June  11,  1836. 

No  man  can  object  more  than  I  do  to  the  quoting  Scripture 
language  irreverently  or  lightly ;  but  I  see  no  impropriety  in 
referring  to  Scripture  examples,  whether  of  sets  of  men  or  of 
individuals.  Hophni  and  Phinehas  are  recorded  as  speci- 
mens of  the  worst  class  of  ministers  of  an  established  religion. 
The  Judaizers  of  the  New  Testament  exhibit  in  the  germ  all 
the  evils  which  have  since  most  corrupted  the  Christian 
Church.  I  cannot  but  think  it  legitimate  and  right  to  refer 
to  these  examples,  when  the  same  evils  are  flaming  hi  the 

face  of  day  before  our  eyes.     I  do  not  say  or  think  that 

and  are  bad  men.     I  do  not  think  that  John  Gerson 

was  a  bad  man ;  yet  he  was  a  principal  party  in  the  foul 
treachery  and  murder  committed  against  John  Huss  at  the 
Council  of  Constance. 

CXXIV.       TO    THE    REV.   J.    HEARN. 

(In  congratulation  on  his  appointment  to  a  living.) 

Rugby,  April  12,  1836. 

I  covet  rest  neither  for  my  friends  nor  yet  for  my- 
self so  long  as  we  are  able  to  work ;  but,  when  age  or  weak- 
ness comes  on,  and  hard  labor  becomes  an  unendurable  burthen, 

*  In  1841  he  expressed  his  intention  of  fulfilling  this  resolution,  had  a 
condemnation  of  Tract  90  been  proposed  to  Convocation. 

VOL.   II.  4 


38  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

then  the  necessity  of  work  is  deeply  painful,  and  it  seems  to 
me  to  imply  an  evil  state  of  society  wherever  such  a  necessity 
generally  exists.  One's  age  should  be  tranquil  as  one's  child- 
hood should  be  playful :  hard  work  at  either  extremity  of 
human  existence  seems  to  me  out  of  place ;  the  morning  and 
the  evening  should  be  alike  cool  and  peaceful ;  at  mid-day  the 

sun  may  burn,  and  men  may  labor  under  it. [After 

speaking  of  the  Hampden  controversy.]  It  is  a  curious  case, 
and  is  completely,  to  my  mind,  a  repetition  of  the  scenes  of 
the  Reformation.  When  Peter  Martyr  went  down  as  Divinity 
Professor  to  Oxford  in  Edward  the  Sixth's  time,  he  was  re- 
ceived by  the  Catholics  with  precisely  the  same  outcry  with 
which  Hampden  has  been  received  by  the  High  Churchmen, 
and  on  the  same  grounds.  I  think  that  the  Evangelicals  have 
in  some  instances  been  led  to  join  in  the  clamor  against  him, 
from  their  foolish  fondness  for  their  particular  phraseology, 
and  from  their  want  of  ability  to  recognize  the  real  features 
of  any  movement  of  opinion.* 

About  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago,  when  there  was  really  a 
leaven  of  Socinianism  in  the  Church,  it  showed  itself  in  pe- 
titions to  be  relieved  from  the  Articles,  and  in  the  absence 
of  a  strongly-marked  Christian  character  in  the  writings  of 
the  petitioning  party.  But  Hampden  is  doing  what  real 
Christian  reformers  have  ever  done ;  what  the  Protestants 
did  with  Catholicism,  and  the  Apostles  with  Judaism.  He 
upholds  the  Articles  as  true  in  substance,  he  maintains  their 
usefulness,  and  the  truth  and  importance  of  their  doctrines ; 
but  he  sees  that  the  time  is  come  when  their  phraseology  re- 
quires to  be  protested  against,  as  having,  in  fact,  obstructed 
and  embarrassed  the  reception  of  the  very  truths  which  they 
intend  to  inculcate.  He  is  engaged  in  that  same  battle  against 
technical  theological  language,  to  which  you  and  I  have,  I 
believe,  an  equal  dislike  ;  while  he  would  join  us  thoroughly  in 
condemning  the  errors  against  which  the  Articles  were  direct- 
ed, and  holds  exactly  the  language  and  sentiments  which  Cran- 
mer  and  Ridley,  I  believe,  would  hold  if  they  were  alive  now. 

*  "  They  urge,"  ho  said,  "  that  Hampden  has  a  tendency  to  Socinianism. 
Of  course  he  may  have  an  element  of  Socinianism.  Every  great  mind  must 
of  necessity  have  the  germ  of  that  which,  earned  to  excess,  becomes  Socin- 
ianism; but  to  enter  into  the  ouestion  of  how  it  is  to  be  combined  with  other 
qualities  of  the  opposite  kind,  and  where  it  ceases  to  be  sound,  and  begins 
to  be  mischievous,  is  to  enter  on  the  great  question  of  the  two  great  philo- 
sophical divisions  of  the  human  race;  and  then  conceive  the  Oxford  Con- 
Vocation  deciding  ou  the  principles  of  Idealism  and  Sensualism!  " 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  3'J 


CXXV.      TO   W.   W.   HULL,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  April  27,  1836. 

Objections  to  my  statement  do  not  bring  us  to  the 

point ;  my  view  stands  on  four  legs,  and  I  think  meets  all  the 
difficulties  of  the  case.  If  you  say  otherwise,  I  want  to  see 
another  view  that  shall  also  stand  on  four  legs,  and  those  legs 
good  ones,  I  think  the  Roman  Catholic  system  has  the  legs 
right  in  number,  the  system  is  consistent ;  but  it  is  based  on 
one  or  two  great  falsehoods.  The  English  High-Church  sys- 
tem I  think  both  false  and  inconsistent But  I  turn 

more  gladly  to  a  point  in  which  I  think  we  heartily  agree.  I 
want  to  petition  against  the  Jew  Bill,  but  I  believe  I  must 
petition  alone ;  for  you  would  not  sign  my  preamble,  nor 
would  many  others  who  will  petition  doubtless  against  the 
measure.  I  want  to  take  my  stand  on  my  favorite  principle, 
that  the  world  is  made  up  of  Christians  and  non-Christians ; 
with  all  the  former  we  should  be  one,  with  none  of  the  latter. 
I  would  thank  the  Parliament  for  having  done  away  with 
distinctions  between  Christian  and  Christian ;  I  would  pray 
that  distinctions  be  kept  up  between  Christians  and  non-Chris- 
tians. Then  I  think  that  the  Jews  have  no  claim  whatever 
of  political  right.  If  I  thought  of  Roman  Catholicism  as  you 
do,  I  would  petition  for  the  repeal  of  the  Union  to-morrow, 
because  I  think  Ireland  ought  to  have  its  own  Church  estab- 
lished in  it ;  and  if  I  thought  that  Church  anti-Christian,  I 
should  object  to  living  in  political  union  with  a  people  belong- 
ing to  it.  But  the  Jews  are  strangers  in  England,  and  have 
no  more  claim  to  legislate  for  it  than  a  lodger  has  to  share 
with  the  landlord  in  the  management  of  his  house.  If  we 
had  brought  them  here  by  violence,  and  then  kept  them  in  an 
inferior  condition,  they  would  have  just  cause  to  complain  ; 
though  even  then,  I  think,  we  might  lawfully  deal  with  them 
on  the  Liberia  system,  and  remove  them  to  a  land  where  they 
might  live  by  themselves  independent ;  for  England  is  the 
land  of  Englishmen,  not  of  Jews.  And  in  this  my  German 
friends  agree  with  me  as  fully  as  they  do  in  my  dislike  to  the 
Protestant  Establishment  in  Ireland,  which  is  the  land  of 
Irishmen ;  and  from  which  we  ought  to  go,  and  not  the  Irish, 
tf  our  consciences  clamor  against  living  with  them  according 
to  justice.  So  now  here  is  agreement  with  you  and  disa- 
greement. 


40  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 


CXXVI.      TO    THE   ARCHBISHOP   OF   DUBLIN. 

Rugby,  May  4, 1836, 

Your  opinion  of  the  Edinburgh  Review  gave  me,  as  you 
may  believe,  very  great  pleasure  ;  but  I  did  not  think  that  it 
would  be  worth  while  to  print  it  in  a  separate  shape,  because 
Ihe  more  I  saw  of  the  temper  of  the  Judaizers,  the  less  did 
it  seem  likely  to  persuade  any  of  them  from  their  evil  deeds 
before  to-morrow's  Convocation ;  and  because  having  written 
once  agonistically,  I  wish  next  to  write  in  another  manner, 
and  to  go  deeper  to  work  with  the  root  of  error,  from  which 
all  this  Judaizing  springs.  And  here  I  feel  sadly  my  distance 
from  all  who  might  advise  and  co-operate  in  such  a  work.  I 
want  to  get  out  a  series  of  "  Church  of  England  Tracts," 
which,  after  establishing  again  the  supreme  authority  of 
Scripture  and  reason,  against  Tradition,  Councils,  and  Fathers, 
and  showing  that  reason  is  not  rationalism,  should  then  take 
two  lines,  the  one  negative,  the  other  positive ;  the  negative 
one,  showing  that  the  pretended  unity,  which  has  always  been 
the  idol  of  Judaizers,  is  worthless,  impracticable,  —  and  the 
pursuit  of  it  has  split  Christ's  Church  into  a  thousand  sects, 
and  will  keep  it  so  split  forever :  the  other  positive,  showing 
that  the  true  unity  is  most  precious,  practicable,  and  has  in 
fact  been  never  lost;  that  at  all  times  and  in  all  countries 
there  has  been  a  succession  of  men,  enjoying  the  blessings 
and  showing  forth  the  fruits  of  Christ's  spirit ;  that  in  their 
lives  and  in  what  is  truly  their  religion  —  i.  e.  in  their  prayers 
and  hymns  —  there  has  been  a  wonderful  unity ;  that  all  sects 
have  had  amongst  them  the  marks  of  Christ's  Catholic 
Church,  in  the  graces  of  His  Spirit,  and  the  Confession  of 
His  name ;  for  which  purpose  it  might  be  useful  to  give, 
side  by  side,  the  martyrdoms,  missionary  labors,  &c.,  of 
Catholics  and  Arians,  Romanists  and  Protestants,  Church- 
men and  Dissenters.  Here  is  a  grand  field,  giving  room  for 
learning,  for  eloquence,  for  acuteness,  for  judgment,  and  for 
a  true  love  of  Christ,  in  those  who  took  part  in  it,  —  and 
capable,  I  think,  of  doing  much  good.  And  the  good  is 
wanted ;  because  it  is  plain  that  the  Judaizers  have  infected 

even  those  who  still  profess  to  disclaim  them I  shall 

talk  this  matter  over  with  Hawkins,  who  has  behaved  nobly 
in  this  matter,  but  who  still,  I  think,  contributed  to  their 
mischief  by  his  unhappy  sermon  on  Tradition.  I  am  well 
satisfied,  that  if  you  let  in  but  one  little  finger  of  Tradition 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  41 

you  will  have  in  the  whole  monster  —  horns,  and  tail,  and  alL 
I  teach  my  children  the  Catechism  and  the  Creed,  not  for 
any  tradition's  sake,  but  because  the  Church  of  England  has 
adopted  them.  Each  particular  Church  is  an  authority  to 
members  of  that  Church  ;  but  for  any  general  tradition 
having  authority  from  universality  or  antiquity,  I  do  not 
believe  that  there  is  any  such ;  and  what  are  called  such, 
are,  I  think,  only  corruptions,  more  or  less  ancient,  and  more 
or  less  mischievous,  of  the  true  Christianity  of  the  Scriptures. 
I  have  received  your  volume  of  Charges,  &c.,  for  which  I 
am  very  much  obliged  to  you.  I  have  read  your  additional 
remarks  on  the  Jew  Bill,  and  grieve  that  there  should  be  so 
much  difference  between  us.  In  my  Catholic  Pamphlet,  or 
rather  in  one  place  in  the  Postscript,  there  is  one  paragraph 
which  I  should  now  cancel,  —  that  which  applies  St.  Paul's 
rule  about  husbands  and  wives  of  different  religions  to  men 
of  different  religions  in  a  commonwealth.  The  general 
argument  of  the  pamphlet  I  should  perfectly  maintain  now, 
—  that  the  Irish  being  a  Catholic  people,  they  have  a  right 
to  perfect  independence,  or  to  a  perfectly  equal  union :  if  our 
conscience  objects  to  the  latter,  it  is  bound  to  concede  the 
former.  But  for  the  Jews  I  see  no  plea  of  justice  whatever ; 
they  are  voluntary  strangers  here,  and  have  no  claim  to 
become  citizens,  but  by  conforming  to  our  moral  law,  which 
is  the  Gospel.  Had  we  brought  them  here  as  captives,  I 
should  think  that  we  ought  to  take  them  back  again,  and 
I  should  think  myself  bound  to  subscribe  for  that  purpose. 
I  would  give  the  Jews  the  honorary  citizenship  which  was  so 
often  given  by  the  Romans  —  i.  e.  the  private  rights  of  citi- 
zens, jus  commercii  et  jus  connubii,  —  but  not  the  public 
rights,  jus  suffragii  and  jus  honorum.  But  then,  according 
to  our  barbarian  feudal  notions,  the  jus  commercii  involves 
the  jus  suffragii ;  because  land,  forsooth,  is  to  be  represented 
in  Parliament,  just  as  it  used  to  confer  jurisdiction.  Then, 
again,  I  cannot  but  think  that  you  overestimate  the  dif- 
ference between  Christian  and  Christian.  Every  member  of 
Christ's  Catholic  Church  is  one  with  whom  I  may  lawfully 
join  in  legislation,  and  whose  ministry  I  may  lawfully  use,  as 
a  judge  or  a  magistrate ;  but  a  Jew  or  heathen  I  cannot 
apply  to  voluntarily,  but  only  obey  him  passively  if  he  has 
the  rule  over  me.  A  Jew  judge  ought  to  drive  all  Chris- 
tians from  pleading  before  him,  according  to  St.  Paul, 
I  Cor.  vi.  1. 

4* 


42  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

CXXVII.      TO    SIR   THOMAS    S.    PASLET,   BAKT. 

Rugby,  May  11, 1836. 

I  have  been  waiting  week  after  week  in  the  hope  of  being 
able  to  tell  you  of  something  about  the  New  University ;  but  I 
begin  to  think  that  if  I  wait  till  the  Government  plans  are 
decided,  I  shall  not  write  to  you  at  all  before  we  meet ;  and  I 
would  rather  send  you  a  letter  with  nothing  in  it,  than  appear 
indifferent  to  the  pleasure  of  keeping  up  some  communication 
with  you, —  a  privilege  which,  I  can  truly  say,  I  value  more 
and  more  after  every  fresh  meeting  with  you.  I  meet  with  a 
great  many  persons  in  the  course  of  the  year,  and  with  many 
whom  I  admire  and  like ;  but  what  I  feel  daily  more  and 
more  to  need,  as  life  every  year  rises  more  and  more  before 
me  in  its  true  reality,  is  to  have  intercourse  with  those  who 
take  life  in  earnest.  It  is  very  painful  to  me  to  be  always  on 
the  surface  of  things  ;  and  I  think  that  literature,  science,  poli- 
tics —  many  topics  of  far  greater  interest  than  mere  gossip  or 
talking  about  the  weather — are  yet,  as  they  are  generally 
talked  about,  still  on  the  surface ;  they  do  not  touch  the  real 
depths  of  life.  It  is  not  that  I  want  much  of  what  is  called 
religious  conversation, —  that,  I  believe,  is  often  on  the  surface, 
like  other  conversation  ;  but  I  want  a  sign,  which  one 
catches  as  by  a  sort  of  masonry,  that  a  man  knows  what  he  is 
about  in  life,  —  whither  tending,  and  in  what  cause  engaged ; 
and  when  I  find  this,  it  seems  to  open  my  heart  as  thoroughly, 
and  with  as  fresh  a  sympathy,  as  when  I  was  twenty  years 
younger.  I  feel  this  in  talking  to  you,  and  in  writing  to  you  ; 
and  I  feel  that  you  will  neither  laugh  at  me,  nor  be  offended 
with  me  for  saying  it. 

CXXVIII.      *TO   DB.    GREENHILL. 

Rugby,  May  9, 1836. 

At  last  I  hope  to  redeem  my  credit  with  you,  though  indeed 
it  may  well  be  almost  irretrievable.  I  must  go  back  over  our 
hurried  meeting  of  Thursday  last,  to  your  two  kind  letters, 
and  the  report  which  they  give  of  your  medical  studies,  in 
which  I  rejoice,  as  in  everything  else,  —  and  even  more  than 
in  most  things  that  I  am  acquainted  with.  What  our  fathers 
have  done,  still  leaves  an  enormous  deal  for  us  to  do.  The 
philosophy  of  medicine,  I  imagine,  is  almost  at  zero :  our 
practice  is  empirical,  and  seems  hardly  more  than  a  course  of 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  43 

guessing,  more  or  less  happy.  The  theory  of  life  itself  lies 
probably  beyond  our  knowledge  ;  so,  probably,  is  that  of  the 
origin  of  thought  and  perception.  We  talk  of  nerves,  and  we 
perceive  their  connection  with  operations  of  the  mind ;  but  we 
cannot  understand  a  thinking,  or  a  seeing,  or  a  hearing  nerve, 
nor  do  electricity  or  galvanic  action  bring  us  nearer  to  the 
point.  But  coming  down  to  a  far  lower  point,  how  ignorant 
are  we  of  the  causes  of  disorder,  of  the  real  influence  of  air, 
and  of  its  component  parts  as  affecting  health,  of  infection, 
and  of  that  strange  phenomenon  of  diseases  incident  generally 
to  the  human  frame,  but  for  the  most  part  incident  once  only, 
such  as  measles,  small-pox,  and  the  old  Athenian  plague, 
or  incident  only  after  a  certain  period,  as  the  vaccine  infection. 
Here,  and  in  a  thousand  other  points,  there  is  room  for  infi- 
nite discoveries ;  —  to  say  nothing  of  the  wonderful  phenomena 
of  animal  magnetism,  which  only  Englishmen,  with  their  ac- 
customed ignorance,  venture  to  laugh  at,  but  which  no  one 
yet  has  either  thoroughly  ascertained  or  explained. 

If  one  might  wish  for  impossibilities,  I  might  then 

wish  that  my  children  might  be  well  versed  in  physical  science, 
but  in  due  subordination  to  the  fulness  and  freshness  of  their 
knowledge  on  moral  subjects.  This,  however,  I  believe  can- 
not be ;  and  physical  science,  if  studied  at  all,  seems  too  great 
to  be  studied  eV  7rapepya> :  wherefore,  rather  than  have  it  the 
principal  thing  in  my  son's  mind,  I  would  gladly  have  him 
think  that  the  sun  went  round  the  earth,  and  that  the  stars 
were  so  many  spangles  set  in  the  bright  blue  firmament. 
Surely  the  one  thing  needful  for  a  Christian  and  an  English- 
man to  study  is  Christian  and  moral  and  political  philosophy, 
and  then  we  should  see  our  way  a  little  more  clearly  without 
falling  into  Judaism,  or  Toryism,  or  Jacobinism,  or  any  other 
ism  whatever.  All  here  is  going  on  comfortably,  with  much 
actually  good,  and  much  in  promise ;  with  much  also  to  make 
one  anxious,  according  to  the  unavoidable  course  of  human 
things.  My  mind  expatiates  sometimes  upon  Fox  How,  when 
I  see  the  utter  dulness  of  the  country  about  Rugby,  which 
certainly  is  beyond  the  reach  of  railways  to  spoil.  On  Satur- 
day we  went,  a  party  of  twenty,  to  Nuneham  Wood ;  —  Mrs. 
Arnold  and  myself,  with  eight  children,  and  twelve  persons 
besides. 


44  I-IFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

•   \  \  IX.      TO    THE   ARCHBISHOP    OP    DUBLIN. 

Rugby,  May  16,  183«. 

I  have  no  thought  of  writing  anything  about  the 

Jew  Bill  or  Church  Reform  at  present.  If  the  Jew  Bill 
comes  forward.  I  shall  perhaps  petition  against  it,  either  in 
common  with  the  clergy  of  the  neighborhood,  whom  I  could 
on  that  question  join,  though  not  probably  in  my  reasons  for 
opposing  it ;  or  else  singly,  to  state  my  own  views  as  a  Lib- 
eral in  being  unfavorable  to  any  measure  of  the  present 
Government.  Undoubtedly,  I  think  that  up  to  1795  or  '6, 
whenever  the  elective  franchise  was  granted  to  the  Catholics, 
the  Protestants  were  de  facto  the  only  citizens  of  Ireland ; 
and  that  the  Catholic  claims  could  not  then  be  urged  on  the 
same  ground  that  they  are  now.  Till  that  time  one  must 
have  appealed  to  a  higher  law,  and  asked  by  what  right  the 
Protestants  had  become  the  only  citizens  of  Ireland ;  it  was 
then  a  question  of  the  Jus  Gentium,  now  it  is  merely  one  of 
Jus  Civile.  I  never  have  justified  the  practice  of  one  race  in 
wresting  another's  country  from  it ;  I  only  say  that  every 
people  in  that  country  which  is  rightfully  theirs,  may  establish 
their  owu  institutions  and  their  own  ideas;  and  that  no 
stranger  has  any  title  whatever  to  become  a  member  of  that 
nation,  unless  he  adopts  their  institutions  and  ideas.  It  is 
not  what  a  government  may  impose  upon  its  subjects,  but 
what  a  people  may  agree  upon  for  themselves ;  and,  though 
England  does  not  belong  to  the  king,  yet  it  belongs  to  the 
English ;  and  the  English  may  most  justly  say  that  they  will 
admit  no  stranger  to  be  one  of  their  society.  If  they  say  that 
they  will  admit  him,  that  is,  if  Parliament  pass  the  Jew  Bill, 
I  do  not  at  all  dispute  their  right  as  Englishmen  to  do  so,  and 
as  an  Englishman  I  owe  obedience  to  their  decision ;  but  I 
think  they  make  England  cease  to  be  the  iro\is  of  a  Christian, 
and  we,  like  the  old  Christians,  shall  then  become  in  our  turn 
ndpoiKoi.  Politically,  if  we  are  the  minority,  I  see  no  injus- 
tice in  this,  but  I  think  that  we  may  wonder  a  little  at  those 
of  the  majority,  who  are  Christians ;  seeing  that  we  as  Eng- 
lishmen have  a  nearer  claim  to  English  citizenship  than  the 
Jews  can  have ;  and  Christians  being  the  majority,  ought,  I 
think,  to  establish  their  own  ideas  in  their  own  land. 

Meanwhile,  I  think  that  I  shall  fulfil  my  intention  of  pub- 
lishing the  three  Pastoral  Epistles,  (Timothy  and  Titus.) 
with  Notes  and  Dissertations.  I  should  print  in  parallel  col- 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  45 

umns,  the  Greek  text,  as  correctly  as  I  could  give  it ;  the 
Latin  Vulgate ;  and  the  English  authorized  version  corrected, 
noticing  every  correction  by  printing  it  in  a  smaller  type,  and 
marking  with  obeli  such  words  or  expressions  in  our  trans- 
lation as  I  think  require  amendment,  but  which  I  cannot 
amend  to  my  satisfaction.  The  Dissertations  would  embrace 
naturally  every  point  on  which  the  Oxford  Judaizers  have  set 
up  their  heresy; — the  priesthood,  sacraments,  apostolical  suc- 
cession, tradition,  the  church,  —  and  above  all  would  contain 
the  positive  opposite  to  all  their  idolatries,  the  doctrine  of  the 
Person  of  Christ ;  not  His  Church,  not  His  sacraments,  not 
His  teaching,  not  even  the  truths  about  Him,  nor  the  virtues 
which  He  most  enforces,  but  Himself;  that  only  object  which 
bars  fanaticism  and  idolatry  on  the  one  hand,  and  gives  life 
and  power  to  all  morality  on  the  other.  And  this  is  what  St 
Paul  constantly  opposes  to  the  several  idolatries  of  the  Juda- 
izers, see  Colossians  ii.  and  1  Timothy  iv.,  connecting  with 
it  the  last  verse  of  chapter  iii.,  which  has  been  so  strangely 
severed  from  its  context. 

I  never  yet  in  my  life  made  any  application  for  preferment, 
nor  have  I  desired  it.  But  I  confess,  if  Hampden  is  to  be 
made  a  Bishop,  I  wish  that  they  would  put  me  in  his  place  at 
Oxford.  I  should  be  a  very  great  loser  in  point  of  income  by 
the  change,  and  till  lately,  I  have  never  fancied  that  I  could 
be  more  useful  anywhere  else  than  at  Rugby.  But  I  think 
under  present  circumstances  that  I  could  do  more  good  at 
Oxford.  I  could  not  supply  your  place,  but  I  could  supply  it 
better  than  it  is  supplied  now.  I  should  have  a  large  body  of 
very  promising  young  men  disposed  to  listen  to  me  for  old 
affection's  sake,  and  my  fondness*  for  young  men's  society 
would  soon  bring  others  about  me  whom  I  might  influence. 
I  should  be  of  weight  from  my  classical  knowledge,  and  I  am 
old  enough  now  to  set  down  many  of  the  men  who  are  fore- 
most in  spreading  their  mischief,  and  to  give  some  sanction 
of  authority  to  those  who  think  as  I  do,  but  who  at  present 
want  a  man  to  lean  upon.  And,  though  the  Judaizers  hate 
me,  I  believe,  worse  than  they  hate  Hampden,  yet  they  could 
not  get  up  the  same  clamor  against  me,  for  the  bugbear  of 
Apostolical  succession  would  not  do,  and  it  would  puzzle  even 

to  get  up  a  charge  of  Socinianism  against  me  out  of  my 

Sermons.  Furthermore,  my  spirit  of  pugnaciousness  would 
rejoice  in  fighting  out  the  battle  with  the  Judaizers,  a^  it  were 
in  a  saw-pit ;  and,  as  my  skin  is  tough,  my  wife's  tougher,  and 


46  LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

< 

the  children's  toughest  of  all,  I  am  satisfied  that  we  should 
live  in  Oxford  amidst  any  quantity  of  abuse  unhurt  in  health 
or  spirits,  and  I  should  expatiate  as  heretofore  in  Bagley 
Wood  and  on  Shotover.  Do  not  understand  this  as  implying 
any  weariness  with  Rugby ;  —  far  from  it ;  —  I  have  got  a 
very  effective  position  here,  which  I  would  only  quit  for  one 
which  seems  even  more  effective ;  but  I  keep  one  great  place 
of  education  sound  and  free,  and  unavoidably  gain  an  influ- 
ence with  many  young  men,  and  endeavor  to  make  them  see 
that  they  ought  to  think  on  and  understand  a  subject,  before 
they  take  up  a  party  view  about  it.  I  hunger  sometimes  for 
more  time  for  writing ;  but  I  do  not  indulge  the  feeling ;  and 
on  the  other  hand,  I  think  my  love  of  tuition  rather  grows 
upon  me. 

GXXX.      *  TO    A.    P.    STANLEY,  ESQ. 

Rugby,  May  24,  1836. 

Now  with  regard  to  the  Newmanites.     I  do  not 

call  them  bad  men,  nor  would  I  deny  their  many  good  quali- 
ties ; I  judge  of  them  as  I  do  commonly  of  mixed 

characters,  where  the  noble  and  the  base,  the  good  and  the 
bad,  are  strangely  mixed  up  together.  There  is  an  ascending 
scale  from  the  grossest  personal  selfishness,  such  as  that  of 
Caesar  or  Napoleon,  to  party  selfishness,  such  as  that  of  Sylla, 
or  fanatical  selfishness,  that  is,  the  idolatry  of  an  idea  or  a 
principle,  such  as  that  of  Robespierre*  and  Dominic,  and 
some  of  the  Covenanters.  In  all  these,  except  perhaps  the 
first,  we  feel  a  sympathy  more  or  less,  because  there  is  some- 
thing of  personal  self-devotion  and  sincerity ;  but  fanaticism 
is  idolatry,  and  it  has  the  moral  evil  of  idolatry  in  it ;  that  is, 
a  fanatic  worships  something  which  is  the  creature  of  his  own 
devices,  and  thus  even  his  self-devotion  in  support  of  it  is  only 
an  apparent  self-sacrifice,  for  it  is  in  fact  making  the  parts  of 

*  Robespierre  he  used  to  distinguish  from  Danton,  and  others  of  the  revo- 
lutionary leaders,  as  being  a  sincere  fanatic  in  the  cause  of  Republicanism. 
"  The  life  and  character  of  Robespierre  has  to  me  a  most  important  lesson," 
he  said  once  to  a  former  pupil,  with  the  emphasis  of  one  who  had  studied  it 
for  his  own  profit;  "  it  snows  the  frightful  consequences  of  making  every- 
thing give  way  to  a  favorite  notion.  The  man  was  a  just  man,  and  humane 
naturally,  but  he  would  narrow  everything  to  meet  his  own  views,  and 
nothing  could  check  him  at  last.  It  is  a  most  solemn  warning  to  us  of  what 
fanaticism  may  lead  to  in  God's  world."  To  Dominic,  in  allusion  to  his 
supposed  share  in  the  Albigensian  crusade,  and  the  foundation  of  the  Inqui- 
sition, he  used  to  apply  St  Paul's  words,  1  Cor.  iii.  15. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  47 

his  nature  or  his  mind,  which  he  least  values,  offer  sacrifice  to 
that  which  he  most  values.  The  moral  fault,  as  it  appears  to 
me,  is  in  the  idolatry,  —  the  setting  up  some  idea  which  is 
most  kindred  to  our  own  minds,  and  then  putting  it  in  the 
place  of  Christ,  who  alone  cannot  be  made  an  idol,  and  cannot 
inspire  fanaticism,  because  He  combines  all  ideas  of  perfec- 
tion, and  exhibits  them  in  their  just  harmony  and  combination. 
Now  to  my  own  mind,  by  its  natural  tendency,  —  that  is, 
taking  my  mind  at  its  best,  —  truth  and  justice  would  be  the 
idols  that  I  should  follow ;  and  they  would  be  idols,  for  they 
would  not  supply  all  the  food  that  the  mind  wants,  and  whilst 
worshipping  them,  reverence  and  humility  and  tenderness 
might  very  likely  be  forgotten.  But  Christ  Himself  includes 
at  once  truth  and  justice,  and  all  these  other  qualities  too. 
In  other  men  I  cannot  trace  exactly  the  origin  of  the  idolatry, 
except  by  accident  in  some  particular  cases.  But  it  is  clear 
to  me  that  Newman  and  his  party  are  idolaters;  they  put 
Christ's  Church  and  Christ's  Sacraments,  and  Christ's  minis- 
ters, in  the  place  of  Christ  Himself;  and  these  being  only 
imperfect  ideas,  the  unreserved  worship  of  them  unavoidably 
tends  to  the  neglect  of  other  ideas  no  less  important ;  and 
thence  some  passion  or  other  loses  its  proper  and  intended 
check,  and  the  moral  evil  follows.  Thus  it  is  that  narrow- 
mindedness  tends  to  wickedness,  because  it  does  not  extend 
its  watchfulness  to  every  part  of  our  moral  nature,  for  then  it 
would  not  be  narrow-mindedness ;  and  this  neglect  fosters  the 
growth  of  evil  in  the  parts  that  are  so  neglected.  Thus  a  man 
may  "  give  all  his  goods  to  feed  the  poor,  and  yet  be  nothing ; " 
where  I  do  not  understand  it  of  giving  out  of  mere  ostenta- 
tion, or  with  a  view  to  gam  influence,  but  that  a  man  may 
have  one  or  more  virtues,  such  as  are  according  to  his  favorite 
ideas,  in  very  great  perfection,  and  still  be  nothing ;  because 
these  ideas  are  his  idols,  and  worshipping  them  with  all  his 
heart,  there  is  a  portion  of  his  heart,  more  or  less  considerable, 
left  without  its  proper  object,  guide,  and  nourishment,  and  so 
this  portion  is  left  to  the  dominion  of  evil.  Other  men,  and 
these  the  mass  of  mankind,  go  wrong  either  from  having  no 
favorite  ideas  at  all,  and  living  wholly  at  random,  or  npbs  f]8ov^v, 
—  or  else  from  having  ideas  but  indistinctly,  and  paying  them 
but  little  worship,  so  that  here  too  the  common  world  about 
them  gives  the  impression  to  their  minds,  and  thus  they  are 
evil.  But  the  best  men,  I  think,  are  those  who,  worshipping 
Christ  and  no  idol,  and  thus  having  got  hold  of  the  true  idea, 


48  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

yet  from  want  of  faith  cannot  always  realize  it,  and  so  have 
parts  of  their  lives  more  or  less  out  of  that  influence  which 
should  keep  them  right,  —  and  thus  they  also  fall  into  evil ; 
but  they  are  the  best,  because  they  have  set  before  them 
Christ  and  no  idol,  and  thus  having  nothing  to  cast  away,  but 
need  only  to  impress  themselves  with  their  ideas  more  con- 
stantly ;  "  they  need  not  save  to  wash  the  feet,  and  are  then 

clean  every  whit." I  have  been  looking  through  the 

Tracts,*  which  are  to  me  a  memorable  proof  of  their  idolatry ; 
some  of  the  idols  are  better  than  others,  some  being  indeed 
as  very  a  "  Truncus  ficulnus  "  as  ever  the  most  degraded  su- 
perstition worshipped ;  but  as  to  Christianity,  there  is  more  of 
it  in  any  one  of  Mrs.  Sherwood's  or  Mrs.  Cameron's  or  indeed 
of  any  of  the  Tract  Society's  than  in  all  the  two  Oxford  octa- 
vos. And  these  men  would  exclude  John  Bunyan,  and  Mrs. 
Fry,  and  John  Howard,  from  Christ's  Church,  while  they 
exalt  the  Non-jurors  into  confessors,  and  Laud  into  a  martyr ! 


CXXXI.      TO   THE   EARL    HOWE. 

(In  reply  to  a  letter,  requesting,  as  one  of  the  Trustees  of  Rujrby  School, 
that  Dr.  Arnold  would  declare  if  he  was  the  author  of  the  article  on  Dr. 
Hampden  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  attributed  to  him,  and  stating  that  his 
conduct  would  be  guided  by  Dr.  Arnold's  answer.)  t 

Rugby,  June  22, 1836. 
MY   LORD, 

The  answer  which  your  lordship  has  asked  for,  I  have 
given  several  times  to  many  of  my  friends ;  and  I  am  well 
known  to  be  very  little  apt  to  disavow  or  conceal  my  author- 
ship of  anything,  that  I  may  at  any  time  have  written. 

Still,  as  I  conceive  your  lordship's  question  to  be  one  which 
none  but  a  personal  friend  has  the  slightest  right  to  put  to 
me  or  to  any  man,  I  feel  it  due  to  myself  to  decline  giving  any 
answer  to  it 


*  From  a  letter  to  Dr.  Hawkins.  —  "I  have  been  reading  the  Pusey  and 
Newman  Tracts,  with  no  small  astonishment ;  they  surpass  all  mv  expecta- 
tions in  point  of  extravagance,  and  in  their  complete  opposition  to  the 
Christianity  of  the  New  Testament.  But  there  are  some  beautiful  things  in 
Pusev's  Tracts  on  Baptism,  much  that  is  holy  and  pure,  and  truly  Christian; 
till,  like  Don  Quixote's  good  sense  in  ordinary  matters,  it  all  gets  upset  by 
some  outbreak  of  his  particular  superstition. 

t  This  correspondence  ended  in  a  resolution  of  censure  moved  at  the 
Board  of  Trustees,  which  would  probably  have  occasioned  Dr.  Arnold's  re» 
ignation,  had  it  not  been  lost.  See  Letter  cxxxv. 


LIFE    OF    DR.    ARNOLD.  49 


CXXXII.       TO    THE    SAME. 

(In  reply  to  a  second  letter,  urging  compliance  with  his  request,  on  the 
grounds  that  he  might  feel  constrained  by  official  duty  to  take  some  step  la 
the  matter  in  case  the  report  were  true.) 

June  27,  1836. 
MY    LORD, 

I  am  extremely  sorry  that  you  should  have  considered  my 
letter  as  uncourteous  ;  it  was  certainly  not  intended  to  be  so ; 
but  I  did  not  feel  that  I  could  answer  your  lordship's  letter  at 
greater  length  without  going  into  greater  details  by  way  of  ex- 
planation than  its  own  shortness  appeared  to  me  to  warrant. 
Your  lordship  addressed  me  in  a  tone  purely  formal  and 
official,  and  at  the  same  time  asked  a  question  which  the 
common  usage  of  society  regards  as  one  of  delicacy, — justi- 
fied, I  do  not  say,  only  by  personal  friendship,  but  at  least  by 
some  familiarity  of  acquaintance.  It  was  because  no  such 
ground  could  exist  in  the  present  case,  and  because  I  cannot 
and  do  not  acknowledge  your  right  officially,  as  a  trustee  of 
Rugby  School,  to  question  me  on  the  subject  of  my  real  or 
supposed  writings  on  matters  wholly  unconnected  with  the 
school,  that  I  felt  it  my  duty  to  decline  answering  your  lord- 
ship's question. 

It  is  very  painful  to  be  placed  in  a  situation  where  I  must 
either  appear  to  seek  concealment  wholly  foreign  to  my 
wishes,  or  else  must  acknowledge  a  right  which  I  owe  it,  not 
only  to  myself,  but  to  the  master  of  every  endowed  school  in 
England,  absolutely  to  deny.  But  in  the  present  case,  I 
think  I  can  hardly  be  suspected  of  seeking  concealment.  I 
have  spoken  on  the  subject  of  the  article  in  the  Edinburgh 
Review  freely  in  the  hearing  of  many,  with  no  request  for 
secrecy  on  their  part  expressed  or  implied.  Officially,  how- 
ever, I  cannot  return  an  answer,  —  not  from  the  slightest 
feeling  of  disrespect  to  your  lordship,  but  because  my  answer- 
ing would  allow  a  principle  which  I  can  on  no  account  admit 
to  be  just  or  reasonable. 

CXXXIII.       TO    THE    SAME. 
(In  reply  to  a  letter  of  thanks  for  the  last.) 

June  30,  1836 
MT   LORD, 

I  trust  that  you  will  not  think  me  intrusive,  if  I  trouble 
you  once  again  with  these  few  lines,  to  express  to  you  my 


50  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

sincere  thanks  for  the  last  letter  which  I  have  had  the  honor 
of  receiving  from  you.  It  is  a  matter  of  sincere  regret  to 
me,  that  any  part  of  my  conduct  should  fail  to  meet  your 
lordship's  approbation.  If  I  feel  it  the  less  on  the  present 
subject  than  on  any  other,  it  is  because  I  have  been  long  com- 
pelled to  differ  from  many  of  my  friends  whom  I  esteem  most 
highly ;  and  I  fear,  considering  the  vehemence  of  party  feeling 
at  present,  to  incur  their  disapprobation  also.  In  such  cases, 
one  is  obliged  to  bear  the  pain  without  repining,  —  when  a 
man  is  thoroughly  convinced,  as  I  am,  that  the  opinions  which 
he  holds,  and  the  manner  in  which  he  upholds  them,  are  in 
the  highest  degree  agreeable  to  truth,  and  in  conformity  with 
the  highest  principles  of  Christian  duty. 

CXXXIV.       TO    HIS    SISTER    MRS.    BUCKLAND. 
(After  a  visit  to  the  Isle  of  Wight.) 

Fox  How,  July  28,  1836. 

I  certainly  was  agreeably  surprised  rather  than 

disappointed  by  all  the  scenery.  I  admired  the  interior  of 
the  island,  which  people  affect  to  sneer  at,  but  which  I  think 
is  very  superior  to  most  of  the  scenery  of  common  countries. 
As  for  the  Sandrock  Hotel,  it  was  most  beautiful,  and  Bon- 
church  is  the  most  beautiful  thing  I  ever  saw  on  the  sea-coast 
on  this  side  of  Genoa.  Slatwoods  was  deeply  interesting;  I 
thought  of  what  Fox  How  might  be  to  my  children  forty 
years  hence,  and  of  the  growth  of  the  trees  in  that  interval ; 
but  Fox  How  cannot  be  to  them  what  Slatwoods  is  to  me, — 
the  only  home  of  my  childhood,  —  while  with  them  Laleham 
and  Rugby  will  divide  their  affections.  I  had  also  a  great 
interest  in  going  over  the  College  at  Winchester,  but  I  cer- 
tainly did  not  desire  to  change  houses  with  Moberly  ;  no,  nor 
situation,  although  I  envy  him  the  downs  and  the  clear  streams, 
and  the  southern  instead  of  the  midland  country,  and  the 
associations  of  Alfred's  capital  with  the  tombs  of  Kings  and 
Prelates,  as  compared  with  Rugby  and  its  thirteen  horse  and 
cattle  fairs.  .  .  -  .  .  But  when  I  look  at  the  last  number  of 
the  Rugby  Magazine,  or  at  Vauglmn  or  Simpkinson  at  Thorn- 
ley  How,  I  envy  neither  him  nor  any  man,  thinking  that  there 
is  a  good  in  Rugby  which  no  place  can  surpass  in  its  quality, 
be  the  quantity  of  it  much  or  little. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  51 


CXXXV.       TO    REV.    DR.    HAAVKINS. 

Fox  How,  Ambleside,  July  31,  1836. 

It  is  nearly  a  month  since  you  left  Rugby,  and  yet  I  have 
not  written  to  you  nor  given  you  any  account  of  the  result 
of  the  Trustees'  meeting.  The  result,  however,  was  nothing. 
Lord  Howe  brought  forward  some  motion,  and  they  divided 
on  it,  four  and  four ;  but  as  there  is  no  casting  vote,  an  equal 
division  causes  the  failure  of  any  proposal,  and  accordingly  I 
should  have  known  nothing  about  it,  had  it  not  been  for  pri- 
vate information.  In  all  that  passed  publicly,  they  were  all 
as  civil  as  usual,  and  did  all  that  I  wanted  about  the  school. 
So  that  the  meeting  went  off  peaceably,  and  the  exhibitions 
also  went  to  those  whom  I  could  most  have  wished  to  have 
them. 

[After  describing  his  journeys  and  plans  in  the  holidays.] 
It  gave  me  the  greatest  pleasure  to  hear  you  say,  when  you 
left  Rugby,  that  you  hoped  to  repeat  your  visit,  and  bring 
Mrs.  Hawkins  with  you.  It  is  indeed  a  long  time  since  I  have 
seen  you  in  so  much  quiet,  and  life  is  not  long  enough  to  af- 
ford such  long  interruptions  of  intercourse.  And  I  have  also 
had  great  pleasure  in  thinking  that  the  result  of  your  visit 
confirmed  what  I  had  hoped,  and  has  shown  that,  if  we  differ 
on  some  points,  we  agree  in  many  more,  and  that  the  amount 
of  difference  was  not  so  great  as  both,  perhaps,  during  a  long 

absence  had  been  led  to  fancy I  was  amused  to  see 

the  names  of  Pusey  and  some  other  strong  High  Churchmen 
attached  to  a  petition  against  one  of  the  Bills  drawn  on  the 
Church  Commissioners'  Report.  It  will  be  difficult  to  legis- 
late where  the  most  opposite  extremes  of  parties  seem  united 
against  the  Government.  There  are  few  men  with  whom  I 
differ  more  than  the  Bishop  of  Exeter ;  but  I  cordially  ap- 
prove of  his  Amendment  on  the  Marriage  Act  so  far  as  it 
goes ;  only  I  wish  that  he  had  added  to  the  words  "  in  the 
presence  of  God,"  the  true  sign  and  mark  of  a  Christian  act, 
"  and  in  the  name  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  any  Unitarian  would  have  objected  to  it,  nor  any 
one  else  except  those  who  seem  to  me  to  be  utterly  puzzled 
with  the  notions  of  a  "  civil  act,"  and  a  "  religious  act" 


62  LIFE   OF  DK.   ARNOLD. 

CXXXVI.      TO    SIR   J.   FRANKLIN,   K.  C.  B. 
(Then  appointed  Governor  of  Van  Diemen's  Land.) 

Fox  How,  July  20,  1836. 

I  sometimes  think  that  if  the  Government  wouM 

make  me  a  Bishop,  or  principal  of  a  college  or  school,  —  or 
both  together,  —  in  such  a  place  as  Van  Diemen's  Land,  and 
during  your  government,  I  could  be  tempted  to  emigrate  with 
all  my  family  for  good  and  all.  There  can  be,  I  think,  no 
more  useful  or  more  sacred  task,  than  assisting  in  forming 
the  moral  and  intellectual  character  of  a  new  society ;  it  is 
the  surest  and  best  kind  of  missionary  labor.  But  our  colo- 
nial society  has  been  in  general  so  Jacobinical  in  the  truest 
sense  of  the  word ;  every  man  has  lived  so  much  to  and  for 
himself,  and  the  bonds  of  law  and  religion  have  been  so  little, 
acknowledged  as  the  great  sanctions  and  securities  of  society 
—  that  one  shrinks  from  bringing  up  one's  children  where 
they  must  in  all  human  probability  become  lowered,  not  in 
rank  or  fortune,  but  in  what  is  infinitely  more  important,  in 
the  intellectual  and  moral  and  religious  standard  by  which 
their  lives  would  be  guided. 

Feeling  this,  and  holding  our  West  Indian  colonies  to  be 
one  of  the  worst  stains  in  the  moral  history  of  mankind,  a 
convict  colony  seems  to  me  to  be  even  more  shocking  and 
more  monstrous  in  its  very  conception.  I  do  not  know  to 
what  extent  Van  Diemen's  Land  is  so ;  but  I  am  sure  that 
no  such  evil  can  be  done  to  mankind  as  by  thus  sowing  with 
rotten  seed,  and  raising  up  a  nation  morally  tainted  in  its 
very  origin.  Compared  with  this,  the  bloodiest  extermina- 
tions ever  effected  by  conquest  were  useful  and  good  actions. 
If  they  will  colonize  with  convicts,  I  am  satisfied  that  the 
stain  should  last,  not  only  for  one  whole  life,  but  for  more  than 
one  generation ;  that  no  convict  or  convict's  child  should  ever 
be  a  free  citizen ;  and  that,  even  in  the  third  generation,  the 
offspring  should  be  excluded  from  all  offices  of  honor  or 
authority  in  the  colony.  This  would  be  complained  of  as 
unjust  or  invidious,  but  I  am  sure  that  distinctions  of  moral 
breed  are  as  natural  and  as  just  as  those  of  skin  or  of  ar- 
bitrary caste  are  wrong  and  mischievous ;  it  is  a  law  of 
God's  Providence  which  we  cannot  alter,  that  the  sins  of  the 
father  are  really  visited  upon  the  child  in  the  corruption  of  hid 
breed,  and  in  the  rendering  impossible  many  of  the  feelings 
which  are  the  greatest  security  to  a  child  against  evil. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  53 

Forgive  me  for  all  this ;  but  it  really  is  a  happiness  to  me 
to  think  of  you  in  Van  Diemen's  Land,  wtere  you  will  be,  I 
know,  not  in  name  nor  in  form,  but  in  deed  and  in  spirit,  the 
best  and  chief  missionary. 

CXXXVII.       TO    THE    REV.    JAMES    HEARN. 

Rugby,  September  14,  1S36. 

I  know  now  not  when  I  have  been  more  delighted  by  any 
letter,  than  by  that  which  I  lately  received  from  you.  It 
contains  a  picture  of  your  present  state  which  is  truly  a  cause 
for  thankfulness,  and,  speaking  after  the  manner  of  men,  it  is 
an  intense  gratification  to  my  sense  of  justice,  as  well  as  to  my 
personal  regard  for  you,  to  see  a  life  of  hard  and  insufficiently 
paid  labor  well  performed,  now,  before  its  decline,  rewarded 
with  comparative  rest  and  with  comfort.  I  rejoiced  in  the 
picture  which  you  gave  of  your  house  and  fields  and  neigh- 
borhood ;  there  was  a  freshness  and  a  quietness  about  it  which 
always  goes  very  much  to  my  heart,  and  which  at  times,  if  I 
indulged  the  feeling,  could  half  make  me  discontented  with 
the  perpetual  turmoil  of  my  own  life.  For  Westmoreland 
itself  has  not  to  me  the  perfect  peacefulness  of  the  idea  of  a 
country  parsonage ;  the  house  is  too  new,  the  trees  too  young 
and  small,  the  neighborhood  too  numerous,  and  our  stay  is  too 
short  and  too  busily  engaged,  to  allow  of  anything  like  entire 
repose  at  it.  It  is  a  most  delightful  tonic  to  brace  me  for  the 
coming  half-year;  but  it  does  not  admit  of  a  full  abandon- 
ment to  its  enjoyments,  and  it  is  well  that  it  does  not.  I 
sometimes  look  at  the  mountains  which  bound  our  valley,  and 
think  how  content  I  could  be  never  to  wander  beyond  them 
any  more,  and  to  take  rest  in  a  place  which  I  love  so  dearly. 
But  whilst  my  health  is  so  entire,  and  I  feel  my  spirits  still  so 
youthful,  I  feel  ashamed  of  the  wish,  and  I  trust  that  I  can 
sincerely  rejoice  in  being  engaged  in  so  active -a  life,  and  in 
having  such  constant  intercourse  with  others.  Still,  I  can 
heartily  and  lawfully  rejoice  that  you  are  permitted  to  rest 
whilst  your  age  and  spirits  are  also  yet  unbroken,  and  that 
the  hurry  of  your  journey  is  somewhat  abating,  and  allows 
you  more  steadily  to  contemplate  its  close. 

Our  own  two  boys  are  gone  to  Winchester,  and 

have  taken  a  very  good  place  in  the  school,  and  seem  very 
comfortable  there ;  I  am  sure  you  will  give  them  your  prayers, 
that  they  may  be  defended  amidst  the  manifold  temptations  of 


54        .  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

their  change  of  life;  I  feel  as  if  I  could  draw  the  remaining 
children  yet  closer  around  me,  and  as  if  I  could  not  enough 
prize  the  short  period  which  passes  before  they  go  out  into 
life,  never  again  to  feel  their  father's  house  their  abiding  home. 
I  turn  from  public  affairs  almost  in  despair,  as  I  think  that  it 
will  be  a  long  time  before  what  I  most  long  for  will  be  ac- 
complished. Yet  I  still  wish  entirely  well  to  the  Government, 
and  regard  with  unabated  horror  the  Conservatives  both  in 
Church  and  State.  They  are,  however,  I  believe,  growing  in 
influence,  and  so  they  will  do,  until  there  comes  a  check  to 
our  present  commercial  prosperity,  for  vulgar  minds  never 
can  understand  the  duty  of  reform  till  it  is  impressed  on  them 
by  the  argumentum  ad  ventrem ;  and  the  mass  of  mankind, 
whether  in  good  coats  or  in  bad,  will  always  be  vulgar-minded. 

CXXXVIII.       TO    MR.    JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 
(Then  at  Fox  How  with  his  family.) 

Rugby,  September  23, 1836. 

If  you  have  the  same  soft  air  that  is  now  breathing  around 
us,  and  the  same  bright  sun  playing  on  the  trees,  which  are 
full  charged  with  the  freshness  of  last  night's  rain,  you  must, 
I  think,  be  in  a  condition  to  judge  well  of  the  beauty  of  Fox 
How.  It  is  a  real  delight  to  think  of  you  as  at  last  arrived 
there,  and  to  feel  that  the  place  which  we  so  love  is  enjoyed 
by  such  dear  friends,  who  can  enjoy  it  fully.  I  congratulate 
you  on  your  deliverance  from  Lancaster  Castle,  and  by  what 
you  said  in  your  last  letter,  you  are  satisfied,  I  imagine  with 
the  propriety  of  the  verdict.  Now  you  can  not  only  see  the 
mountains  afar  off,  but  feel  them  in  eyes,  lungs,  and  mind ; 
and  a  mighty  influence  I  think  it  is.  I  often  used  to  think  of 
the  solemn  comparison  in  the  Psalm,  "the  hills  stand  about 
Jerusalem ;  even  so  standeth  the  Lord  round  about  his  people." 
The  girdling  in  of  the  mountains  round  the  valley  of  our 
home  is  as  apt  an  image  as  any  earthly  thing  can  be  of  the 
encircling  of  the  everlasting  arms,  keeping  off  evil,  and  show- 
ering all  good. 

But  my  great  delight  in  thinking  of  you  at  Fox  How  is 
mixed  with  no  repining  that  I  cannot  be  there  myself.  We 
have  had  our  holiday,  and  it  was  a  long  and  most  agreeable 
one  ;  and  Nemesis  might  well  be  angry,  if  I  was  not  now 
ready  and  glad  to  be  at  work  again.  Besides,  I  think  that 
the  school  is  again  in  a  very  hopeful  state ;  the  set,  which 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  55 

rather  weighed  us  down  during  the  last  year,  is  now  broken 
and  dispersed ;  and  the  tide  is  again,  I  trust,  at  flood,  and 
will,  I  hope,  go  on  so.  You  would  smile  to  see  the  zeal  with 
which  I  am  trying  to  improve  the  Latin  verse,  and  the  diffi- 
culty which  I  find  in  doing  it.  But  I  stand  in  amaze  at  the 
utter  want  of  poetical  feeling  in  the  minds  of  the  majority  of 
boys.  They  cannot  in  the  least  understand  either  Homer  or 
Virgil ;  they  cannot  follow  out  the  strong  graphic  touches 
which,  to  an  active  mind,  suggest  such  infinitely-varied  pic- 
tures, and  yet  leave  it  to  the  reader  to  draw  them  for  himself 
on  the  hint  given.  But  my  delight  in  going  over  Homer  and 
Virgil  with  the  boys  makes  me  think  what  a  treat  it  must  be 
to  teach  Shakespeare  to  a  good  class  of  young  Greeks  in  re- 
generate Athens ;  to  dwell  upon  him  line  by  line,  and  word 
by  word,  in  the  way  that  nothing  but  a  translation  lesson  ever 
will  enable  one  to  do ;  and  so  to  get  all  his  pictures  and 
thoughts  leisurely  into  one's  mind,  till  I  verily  think  one 
would  after  a  time  almost  give  out  light  in  the  dark,  after 
having  been  steeped  as  it  were  in  such  an  atmosphere  of 
brilliance.  And  how  could  this  ever  be  done  without  having 
the  process  of  construing,  as  the  grosser  medium  through 
which  alone  all  the  beauty  can  be  transmitted,  because  else 
we  travel  too  fast,  and  more  than  half  of  it  escapes  us  ? 
Shakespeare,  with  English  boys,  would  be  but  a  poor  substi- 
tute for  Homer ;  but  I  confess  that  I  should  be  glad  to  get 
Dante  and  Goethe  now  and  then  in  the  room  of  some  of  the 
Greek  tragedians  and  of  Horace ;  or  rather  not  in  their 
room,  but  mixed  up  along  with  them.  I  have  been  trying 
something  of  this  in  French,  as  I  am  now  going  through,  with 
the  Sixth  Form,  Barante's  beautiful  Tableau  de  la  Litterature 
Franchise  pendant  le  Dix-huitieme  Siecle.  I  thought  of  you 
the  other  day,  when  one  of  my  fellows  translated  to  me 
that  splendid  paragraph,  comparing  Voltaire  to  the  Babouc 
of  one  of  his  own  romances,  for  I  think  you  first  showed 
me  the  passage  many  years  ago.  Now  by  going  through 
Barante  in  this  way,  one  gets  it  thoroughly,  and  with  a  really 
good  book,  I  think  it  is  a  great  gam 

CXXXIX.       *  TO    A.    P.    STANLEY,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  October  21, 1836. 

As  long  as  you  read  moderately,  and  not  vora- 
ciously, I  can  consent  that  your  reading  should  even  prevent 


56  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

your  coming  to  Rugby  ;  and  I  am  glad  that,  by  beginning  in 
time,  you  will  escape  all  excessive  pressure  at  last  You  will 
be  rejoicing  at  the  meeting  of  the  scattered  members  of  your 
society  after  the  Long  Vacation.  I  can  well  recall  the  same 
feeling,  deeply  associated  in  my  mind  with  the  October  tints 
of  the  Nettlebed  beech  woods,  through  which  my  road  to 
Oxford,  from  Kensington  and  Hampton,  always  lay.  The 
separation  had  been  long  enough  to  make  the  meeting 
more  than  joyous,  and  some  of  my  most  delightful  remem- 
brances of  Oxford  and  its  neighborhood  are  connected  with 
the  scenery  of  the  later  autumn  ;  Bagley  Wood  in  its  golden 
decline,  and  the  green  of  the  meadows,  reviving  for  a  while 
under  the  influence  of  a  Martinmas  summer,  and  then  fading 
finally  off"  into  its  winter  brown.  Here  our  society  is  too 
busy,  as  well  as  too  old,  to  enjoy  in  common,  though  we  can 
work  in  common  ;  but  work  after  all  is  but  half  the  man, 
and  they  who  only  work  together  do  not  truly  live  together. 

I  agree  with  in  a  great  deal,  and  so  N 

might  ask  as  he  does  about  Hampden  and  the  Socinians, 
where  I  begin  to  disagree  with  him.  Politically,  I  do  not 
know  that  I  do  disagree  as  to  any  principle,  and  in  sympathy 
with  a  man's  mind  in  argument,  it  makes  no  difference 
whether  he  believes  the  exemplification  of  your  common 
principles  to  be  found  in  this  party,  or  in  that  party ;  that 
is  a  mere  question  of  fact,  which  we  need  not  empanel  a 
jury  to  try ;  meanwhile  we  are  agreed  as  to  the  law  of  the 

case But  to  supply  the  place  of  Conscience,  with 

the  3p\ai  of  Fanaticism  on  one  hand  and  of  Utilitarianism 
on  the  other,  —  on  one  side  is  the  mere  sign  from  Heaven, 
craved  by  those  who  heeded  not  Heaven's  first  sign  written 
within  them :  on  the  other,  it  is  the  idea  which,  hardly 
hovering  on  the  remotest  outskirts  of  Christianity,  readily 
flies  off  to  the  camp  of  Materialism  and  Atheism ;  the  mere 
pared  and  plucked  notion  of  "  good "  exhibited  by  the  word 
"  useful ; "  which  seems  to  me  the  idea  of  "  good  "  robbed  of 
its  nobleness,  —  the  sediment  from  which  the  filtered  water 
has  been  assiduously  separated.  It  were  a  strange  world,  if 
there  were  indeed  in  it  no  one  apxtracroviKov  ("8os  but  that  of 
the  gvpfapnv  ;  if  KaXov  were  only  KO\OV,  on  gvpfapov.  But  this 
is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  English  mind  ;  the  Puritan 
and  the  Benthamite  have  an  immense  part  of  their  nature  in 
common ;  and  thus  the  Christianity  of  the  Puritan  is  coarse 
and  fanatical; — he  cannot  relish  what  there  is  in  it  of  beautiful 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  57 

i>r  delicate  or  ideal.  Men  get  embarrassed  by  the  common 
cases  of  a  misguided  conscience ;  but  a  compass  may  be  out 
of  order  as  well  as  a  conscience,  and  the  needle  may  point 
due  south,  if  you  hold  a  powerful  magnet  in  that  direction. 
Still  the  compass,  generally  speaking,  is  the  true  and  sure 
guide,  and  so  is  the  conscience ;  and  you  can  trace  the  de- 
ranging influence  on  the  latter  quite  as  surely  as  on  the 
former.  Again,  there  is  confusion  in  some  men's  minds, 
who  say  that,  if  we  so  exalt  conscience,  we  make  ourselves 
the  paramount  judges  of  all  things,  and  so  do  not  live  by 
faith  and  obedience.  But  he  who  believes  his  conscience  to 
be  God's  law,  by  obeying  it  obeys  God.  It  is  as  much 
obedience,  as  it  is  obedience  to  follow  the  dictates  of  God's 
Spirit ;  and  in  every  case  of  obedience  to  any  law  or  guide 
whatsoever,  there  always  must  be  one  independent  act  of  the 
mind  pronouncing  this  one  determining  proposition,  "  I  ought 
to  obey ; "  so  that  in  obedience,  as  in  every  moral  act,  we  are 
and  must  be  the  paramount  judges,  because  we  must  ourselves 
decide  on  that  very  principle,  "  that  we  ought  to  obey." 

And  as  for  faith,  there  is  again  a  confusion  in  the  use  of  the 
term.  It  is  not  scriptural,  but  fanatical,  to  oppose  faith  to 
reason.  Faith  is  properly  opposed  to  sense,  and  is  the  listen- 
ing to  the  dictates  of  the  higher  part  of  our.  mind,  to  which 
alone  God  speaks,  rather  than  to  the  lower  part  of  us,  to 
which  the  world  speaks.  There  is  no  end  to  the  mischiefs 
done  by  that  one  very  common  and  perfectly  unscriptural 
mistake  of  opposing  faith  and  reason,  or  whatever  you  choose 
to  call  the  highest  part  of  man's  nature.  And  this  you  will 
find  that  the  Scripture  never  does  ;  and  observing  this,  cuts 
down  at  once  all  Pusey's  nonsense  about  Rationalism ;  which, 
in  order  to  be  contrasted  scripturally  with  faith,  must  mean 
the  following  some  lower  part  of  our  nature,  whether  sensual 
or  merely  intellectual ;  —  that  is,  some  part  which  does  not 
acknowledge  God.  But  what  he  abuses  as  Rationalism  is 
just  what  the  Scripture  commends  as  knowledge,  judgment, 
understanding,  and  the  like ;  that  is,  not  the  following  a 
merely  intellectual  part  of  our  nature,  but  the  sovereign 
part ;  —  that  is,  the  moral  reason  acting  under  God,  and 
using,  so  to  speak,  the  telescope  of  faith,  for  objects  too 
distant  for  its  naked  eye  to  discover.  And  to  this  is  opposed, 
in  scriptural  language,  folly  and  idolatry  and  blindness,  and 
other  such  terms  of  reproof.  According  to  Pusey,  the  forty- 
fourth  chapter  of  Isaiah  is  Rationalism,  and  the  man  who 


58  LIFE  OP  DR.   ARNOLD. 

bowed  down  to  the  stock  of  a  tree  was  a  humble  man,  who  did 
not  inquire,  but  believe.  But  if  Isaiah  be  right,  and  speaks 
the  words  of  God,  then  Pusey,  and  the  man  who  bowed  down 
to  the  stock  of  a  tree,  should  learn  that  God  is  not  served  by 
folly. 

CXL.      TO    SIR   THOMAS    8.    PASLET,   BART. 

Rugby,  October  29,  1836. 

The  authority  for  the  statement  which  you  quote 

is  to  be  found  in  Hallam's  Constitutional  History,  vol.  i. 
chap,  iv.,  which  says  that  "  it  was  a  common  practice  for 
several  years  to  appoint  laymen,  usually  mechanics,  to  read 
the  service  in  vacant  churches.  This  does  not  touch  the 
question  of  the  sacraments,  nor  do  I  imagine  that  any  lay- 
man was  ever  authorized  in  the  Church  of  England  to 
administer  the  Lord's  Supper ;  but  lay  baptism  was  allowed 
by  Hooker  to  be  valid,  and  no  distinction  can  be  drawn 
between  one  sacrament  and  the  other.  Language  more  to 
the  purpose  is  to  be  found  in  Tertullian,  —  I  think  in  the 
Treatise  de  Corona  Militis,  —  but  at  any  rate  he  states  first  of 
all  that  the  mode  of  administering  rather  than  communicating 
in  the  Sacrament  was  a  departure  from  the  original  practice  ; 
and  then  he  explains  the  origin  of  the  practice  by  using  the 
word  "  Praesidentes,"  not  "  Sacerdotes  "  or  "  Presbyteri ; "  — 
that  is,  the  person  who  presided  at  the  table  for  order's  sake 
would  distribute  the  bread  and  wine;  and  in  almost  every 
case  he  would  be  an  elder,  or  one  invested  with  a  share  of 
the  government  of  the  Church,  but  he  aid  it  not  as  priest 
but  as  president  of  the  assembly ;  which  makes  just  the  whole 
difference.  But,  after  all,  the  whole  question  as  to  the  matter 
of  right,  and  the  priestly  power,  must  be  answered  out  of 
the  New  Testament  ;  no  one  disputes  the  propriety  of  the 
general  practice  as  it  now  stands  ;  but  the  Church  of  England 
has  not  said  that  it  adopts  this  practice  because  it  is  essential 
to  the  validity  of  the  sacraments  and  is  of  divine  institution, 
but  leaves  the  question  of  principle  open ;  and  this  of  course 
can  only  be  decided  out  of  the  Scriptures.  That  the  Scrip- 
tures are  clear  enough  against  the  priestcraft  notion,  is  to  me 
certain  ;  the  more  so  that  nothing  is  quoted  for  it,  but  the 
words  of  St.  Paul,  "  The  bread  which  we  break,  the  cup  which 
we  bless,"  &c. ;  words  which,  quoted  as  a  text,  look  something 
to  the  quoter's  purpose,  because  the  ignorant  reader  may 


UFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  59 

think  that  "  we  "  mean  St.  Paul  and  his  brother  apostles  ;  but 
if  any  from  the  text  looks  to  the  passage,  he  will  find  that 
the  "  we  "  is  the  whole  Christian  congregation,  inasmuch  as  the 
words  immediately  following  are,  "for  we  being  many  are 
one  bread  and  one  body,  for  we  are  all  partakers  of  that  one 
bread."  1  Corinth  x.  Yet  this  text  I  have  both  seen  in 
books  and  heard  in  conversation  quoted  as  a  Scripture  author- 
ity for  the  exclusive  right  of  the  clergy  to  administer  the 
Communion.  Wherefore  I  conclude,  independently  of  my 
own  knowledge  of  the  New  Testament,  that  such  an  argument 
as  this  would  not  have  been  used,  if  anything  tolerable  were 
to  be  had. 

CXLI.      *TO    DR.    GREENHILL. 

Rugby,  October  31, 1836. 

I  was  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  letter,  and  much 
gratified  by  it.  It  is  a  real  pleasure  to  me  to  find  that  you 
are  taking  steadily  to  a  profession,  without  which  I  scarcely 
see  how  a  man  can  live  honestly.  That  is,  I  use  the  term 
"  profession  "  in  rather  a  large  sense,  not  as  simply  denoting 
certain  callings  which  a  man  follows  for  his  maintenance,  but 
rather,  a  definite  field  of  duty,  which  the  nobleman  has  as 
much  as  the  tailor,  but  which  he  has  not,  who  having  an 
income  large  enough  to  keep  him  from  starving,  hangs  about 
upon  life,  merely  following  his  own  caprices  and  fancies : 
quod  factu  pessimum  est.  I  can  well  enough  understand 
how  medicine,  like  every  other  profession,  has  its  moral  and 
spiritual  dangers ;  but  I  do  not  see  why  it  should  have  more 
than  others.  The  tendency  to  Atheism,  I  imagine,  exists  in 
every  study  followed  up  vigorously,  without  a  foundation  of 
faith,  and  that  foundation  carefully  strengthened  and  built 
upon.  The  student  in  History  is  as  much  busied  with  sec- 
ondary causes  as  the  student  in  medicine ;  the  rule  "  nee 
Deus  intersit,"  true  as  it  is  up  to  a  certain  point,  that  we  may 
oot  annihilate  man's  agency  and  make  him  a  puppet,  is  ever 
apt  to  be  followed  too  far  when  we  are  become  familiar  with 
man  or  with  nature,  and  understand  the  laws  which  direct 
both.  Then  these  laws  seem  enough  to  account  for  every- 
thing, and  the  laws  themselves  we  ascribe  either  to  chance, 
or  the  mystifications  called  "  nature,"  or  the  "  anima  mundi," 
the  "  spiritus  intus  alit "  of  Pantheism.  If  there  is  anything 
special  in  the  atheistic  tendency  of  medicine,  it  arises,  I  sup- 


60  LIFE  OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

pose,  from  certain  vague  notions  about  the  soul,  its  independ- 
ence of  matter,  &c.,  and  from  the  habit  of  considering  these 
notions  as  an  essential  part  of  religion.  Now  I  think  that  the 
Christian  doctrine  of  the  Resurrection  meets  the  Materialists 
so  far  as  this,  that  it  does  imply  that  a  body,  or  an  organi- 
zation of  some  sort,  is  necessary  to  the  full  development  of 
man's  nature.  Beyond  this  we  cannot  go;  for, —  granting 
that  the  brain  is  essential  to  thought, —  still,  no  man  can  say 
that  the  white  pulp  which  you  can  see  and  touch  and  anato- 
mize can  itself  think,  and  by  whatever  names  we  endeavor 
to  avoid  acknowledging  the  existence  of  mind, — whether  we 
talk  of  a  subtle  fluid,  or  a  wonderful  arrangement  of  nerves, 
or  anything  else,  —  still  we  do  but  disguise  our  ignorance; 
for  the  act  of  thinking  is  one  sui  generis,  and  the  thinking 
power  must  in  like  manner  be  different  from  all  that  we  com- 
monly mean  by  matter.  The  question  of  Free  Will  is,  and 
ever  must  be,  imperfectly  understood.  If  a  man  denies  that 
he  has  a  will  either  to  sit  or  not  to  sit,  to  write  a  note  or  no, 
I  cannot  prove  to  him  that  he  has  one.  If  again,  he  main- 
tains that  the  choosing  power  in  him  cannot  but  choose  what 
seems  to  it  to  be  good,  then  this  is  a  great  tribute  to  the  im- 
portance of  good  habits,  and  to  the  duty  of  impressing  right 
notions  of  good  on  the  young  mind,  all  which  is  perfectly 
true.  And,  in  the  last  case,  if  a  man  maintains  that  his  na- 
ture irresistibly  teaches  him  that  what  we  call  good  is  evil, 
and  vice  versa,  then  I  find  at  once  the  value  of  those  passages 
in  Scripture  which  have  been  so  grievously  misused,  and  I  see 
More  me  a  vessel  of  wrath  fitted  for  destruction,  fitted,  as  I 
LcJcve,  through  his  own  fault;  but  if  it  denies  this,  then  at 
any  rate  fitted  for  destruction,  and  on  the  sure  way  to  do  it. 

But  no  doubt  every  study  requires  to  be  tempered  and 
balanced  with  something  out  of  itself,  if  it  be  only  to  prevent 
the  mind  from  becoming  "  einseitig,"  or  pedantic ;  and  ascend- 
ing higher  still,  all  intellectual  study,  however  comprehensive, 
requires  spiritual  study  to  be  joined  with  it,  lest  our  nature 
itself  become  "  einseitig ; "  the  intellect  growing ;  the  higher 
reason  —  the  moral  and  spiritual  wisdom  —  stunted  and  de- 
caying. You  will  be  thinking  that  I  have  been  writing  a 
sermon  by  mistake,  instead  of  a  letter,  but  your  letter  led 
me  into  it.  I  believe  that  any  man  can  make  himself  an 
Atheist  speedily,  by  breaking  off  his  own  personal  communion 
with  God  in  Christ ;  but,  if  he  keep  this  unimpaired,  I  believe 
that  no  intellectual  study,  whether  of  nature  or  of  man,  will 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  61 

force  Tiim  into  Atheism ;  but  on  the  contrary,  the  new  crea- 
tions of  our  knowledge,  so  to  speak,  gather  themselves  into  a 
fair  and  harmonious  system,  ever  revolving  in  their  brightness 
around  their  proper  centre,  the  throne  of  God.  Prayer,  and 
kindly  intercourse  with  the  poor,  are  the  two  great  safeguard* 
of  spiritual  life ;  —  its  more  than  food  and  raiment. 

CXLII.      TO    W.    W.    HULL,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  November  16, 1836. 

I  have  begun  the  Thessalonians,  and  like  the  work  much ; 
but  I  dread  the  difficulty  of  the  second  chapter  of  the  Second 
Epistle.  You  will  not  care  to  hear  that  I  have  got  into  the 
fourth  book  of  Gaius.  But  you  will  not,  I  hope,  find  it 
against  your  conscience,  so  far  to  aid  my  studies  of  law,  as  to 
get  for  me  a  good  copy,  if  you  can,  of  Littleton's  work  upon 
which  Coke  commented.  Coleridge  recommended  it  to  me 
as  illustrating  the  early  state  of  our  law  of  real  property, 
with  the  iniquities  of  feudality  and  the  Conquest  as  yet  in  all 
their  freshness.  I  am  fully  persuaded  that  he,  who  were  to 
get  the  law  of  real  property  of  any  country  in  all  its  fulness, 
would  have  one  of  the  most  important  indications  of  its  political 
and  social  state.  We  have  got  Coleridge's  Literary  Remains, 
in  which  I  do  rejoice  greatly.  I  think  with  all  his  faults  old 
Sam  was  more  of  a  great  man  than  any  one  who  has  lived 
within  the  four  seas  in  my  memory.  It  is  refreshing  to  see 
such  a  union  of  the  highest  philosophy  and  poetry,  with  so 
full  a  knowledge,  on  so  many  points  at  least,  of  particular 
facts.  But  yet  there  are  marks  enough  that  his  mind  was  a 
little  diseased  by  the  want  of  a  profession,  and  the  consequent 
unsteadiness  of  his  mind  and  purposes ;  it  always  seems  to 
me  that  the  very  power  of  contemplation  becomes  impaired 
or  perverted,  when  it  is  made  the  main  employment  of  life. 
Yet  I  would  fain  have  more  time  for  contemplation  than  I 
have  at  present ;  so  hard  is  it  rvxelv  TOV  peo-ov. 

CLXIII.      TO    THE    ARCHBISHOP    OF   DUBLIN. 

Rugby,  November  25, 1836. 

Thank  you  very  much  for  your  enclosure  against 

neutrality,  which  I  suspect  would  be  repelled  by  the  state  of 
mind  of  those  for  whom  it  is  designed,  like  a  cannon-ball  by  a 
woolpack.  Neutrality  seems  to  me  a  natural  state  for  men  of 


b'2  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

fair  honesty,  moderate  wit,  and  much  indolence  ;  they  cannot 
get  strong  impressions  of  what  is  true  and  right,  and  the  weak 
impression,  which  is  all  that  they  can  take,  cannot  overcome 
indolence  and  fear.  I  crave  a  strong  mind  for  my  children, 
for  this  reason,  that  they  then  have  a  chance  at  least  of  appre- 
ciating truth  keenly ;  and  when  a  man  does  that,  honesty  be- 
comes comparatively  easy ;  as,  for  instance,  Peel  has  an  idea 
about  the  currency,  and  a  distinct  impression  about  it ;  and 
therefore  on  that  point  I  would  trust  him  for  not  yielding  to 
clamor ;  but  about  most  matters,  the  Church  especially,  he 
seems  to  have  no  idea,  and  therefore  I  would  not  trust  him 
for  not  giving  it  all  up  to-morrow,  if  the  clamor  were  loud 

enough We  look  forward  with  some  yearnings  to 

Fox  How,  and  we  much  wish  to  know  when  you  will  all  be 
coming  over.  It  is  but  an  ostrich-like  feeling,  but  it  seems  as 
if  I  could  fancy  things  to  be  more  peaceful  when  I  am  out  of 
the  turmoil,  down  in  Westmoreland,  and  I  find  that  I  crave 

after  peace  more  and  more.     But  it  is  owrrw,  o&rw I 

shall  have  occasion  soon  to  set  to  work  at  the  Celtic  languages. 
Can  you  get  for  me,  and  send  me  a  good  Erse  grammar  ;  and 
that  book  that  you  were  mentioning,  about  the  Welsh  being 
Picts,  and  not  the  Aborigines  of  Wales  ?  I  shall  want  all  this 
for  the  Gallic  invasion  of  Rome,  so  beautifully  does  History 
branch  out  into  all  varieties  of  questions,  and  continually  lead 
one  into  fresh  fields  of  knowledge.  I  have  all  but  finished 
my  abstract  of  Gaius's  Institutes  of  the  Roman  Law,  and  de- 
light in  it. 

CXLIV.      *TO    W.    C.    LAKE,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  November  18, 1836. 

I  am  well  satisfied  with  your  impressions  of  Ger- 
many. I  never  have  wished  to  exchange  my  own  country  for 
it,  but  I  feel  indignant  that,  with  all  our  enormous  advantages, 
we  continually  let  the  Germans  do  what  ought  to  be  done  by 
us.  But  I  have  no  temptation,  even  for  one  summer,  to 
resign  Fairfield  for  Drachenfels.  I  daresay  that  gossiping 
flourishes  among  the  German  women,  as  smoking  does  among 
the  men,  and  I  like  neither  the  one  nor  the  other ;  and  their 
scholars  are  perhaps  instances  of  the  division  of  labor  carried 
into  excess ;  *  they  are  not  enough  universal,  not  enough  of 

*  Extract  from  a  letter  of  Chevalier  Bunsen,  in  October,  1836:  —  "  What 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  63 

men,  of  citizens,  and  of  Christians.  But  then  I  turn  and 
look  round,  and  where  can  I  find  what  we  should  most  desire 
on  this  side  of  the  water  either  ?  Where  is  the  knowledge, 
where  the  wisdom,  and  where  the  goodness,  which  combine  to 
form  a  great  man  ?  I  know  of  no  man  who  approaches  to  this 
character  except  Whately,  and  he  is  taken  away  from  the  place 
where  he  was  wanted,  and  sent  where  the  highest  greatness 
would  struggle  in  vain  against  the  overpowering  disadvantages 
of  his  position. 

We,  in  our  little  world,  are  going  on  much  as  usual,  but 
of  this  you  will  hear  from  Clough  more  than  I  could  tell  you. 
For  myself,  I  have  nearly  finished  my  abstract,  or  almost 
translation  of  Gaius's  Institutes,  which  I  thought  it  necessary 
to  finish  before  I  begun  to  write  about  the  Twelve  Tables.  It 
has  answered  to  me,  I  think,  very  well ;  for,  by  the  mere  result 
of  having  had  my  mind  so  long  engaged  about  the  Roman  Law, 
so  left,  as  it  were,  to  soak  in  it,  I  have  gained  a  much  greater 
familiarity  with  it  than  I  could  have  done  by  a  short  and  vora- 
cious cram  of  the  same  number  of  pages.  It  has  greatly 
served  to  increase  that  sense  of  reality  about  the  Romans,  — 
that  living  in  a  manner  amongst  them,  and  having  them  and 
their  life  distinctly  before  our  eyes ;  —  which  appears  to  me  so 
indispensable  to  one  who  would  write  their  history.  This  is 
quiet  and  interesting,  but  not  exciting  reading ;  other  points 
press  me  more  nearly,  and  seem  to  have  a  higher  claim  upon 
me.  I  have  translated  nearly  half  of  the  first  Epistle  to  the 
Thessalonians,  and  am  disposed  to  prefer  the  plan  of  bringing 
out  these  two  Epistles  first,  rather  than  the  Pastoral  Epistles. 
The  chronological  order  of  the  Epistles  is  undoubtedly  the 
natural  one,  and  luckily  the  Epistles  to  the  Thessalonians 
offer  no  very  suspicious  topics ;  they  will  not  be  thought 
to  have  been  chosen  for  purposesof  controversy,  and  yet  they 
may  really  be  made  to  serve  my  purposes  quite  as  well ;  for 
every  part  of  the  New  Testament  gives  a  picture  of  Chris- 
tianity or  of  some  one  great  feature  in  it,  and  every  part  nega- 
tively confutes  the  Priestcraft  heresy,  because  that  is  to  be 

a  strange  work  Strauss's  Leben  Jesu  appears  to  me,  judging  of  it  from  the 
notices  in  the  '  Studien  und  Kritiken.'  It  seems  to  me  to  show  the  ill  effects 
of  that  division  of  labor  •which  prevails  so  much  amongst  the  learned  men 
of  Germany.  Strauss  writes  about  history  and  myths,  without  appearing 
to  have  studied  the  question,  but  having  heard  that  some  pretended  Histories 
•re  mythical,  he  borrows  this  notion  as  an  engine  to  help  him  out  of  Chris- 
tianity. But  the  idea  of  men  writing  mythic  histories  between  the  time  of 
Livy  and  Tacitus,  and  of  St.  Paul  mistaking  such  for  realities!  " 


64  LIFE  OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

found  nowhere,  insomuch  that  no  man  yet  ever  fell  or  could 
fall  into  that  heresy  by  studying  the  Scriptures :  they  are 
a  bar  to  it  altogether,  and  it  is  only  when  they  are  undermined 
by  traditions  and  the  rudiments  of  men  that  the  heresy  begins 
to  make  its  way.  And  it  is  making  its  way  fearfully,  but  it 
will  not  take  the  form  that  Newman  wishes,  but  its  far  more 
natural  and  consistent  form  of  pure  Popery 

CXLV.      TO    REV.    DB.    HAWKINS. 

Rugby,  November  23, 1836. 

I  am  quite  well  again,  and  indeed  my  attack 

was  short  and  slight;  only  so  far  remarkable  to  me  that 
I  kept  my  bed  one  whole  day  for  the  first  time  since  1807, 
which  was  as  gentle  a  reminder  as  could  have  been  given  me, 
that  my  health  cannot  be  always  what  it  has  been.  We  are 
all  well,  and  are  very  glad  to  hear  good  accounts  of  your 

party I  was  in  Laleham  for  five  hours  on  Monday 

morning,  to  attend  the  funeral  of  my  aunt,  the  last  survivor 
of  my  mother's  household.  She  was  in  her  eightieth  year, 
and  after  having  been  an  invalid  all  her  life,  yet  outlived  all 
her  own  family,  and  reached  the  full  age  of  man.  I  cannot 
tell  you  how  solemn  a  thought  it  is  to  have  now  lost  all  my 
relations  of  the  generation  preceding  our  own,  and  to  be  thus 
visibly  brought  into  that  generation  whose  time  for  departure 
comes  the  next. 

I  am  very  desirous  of  going  fully  into  my  views 

about  the  Church,  because  there  is  no  subject  which  I  have 
more  studied,  and  none  where  I  seem  to  see  my  way  so 
clearly,  or  to  sympathize  more  entirely  with  the  Scriptures 
and  with  the  notions  of  all  great  writers  on  government  I 
hold  the  Church  to  be  a  most  divine  institution,  and  eminently 
characteristic  of  Christianity,  and  my  abhorrence  of  the 
Priestcraft  and  Succession  doctrines  (I  do  not  mean  that 
they  are  synonymous)  is  grounded  on  my  firm  conviction  that 
they  are  and  ever  have  been  in  theory  and  in  practice  a  most 
formidable,  device  of  the  great  Enemy  to  destroy  the  real 
living  Church,  and  even  to  drive  it  out  of  men's  minds,  by  the 
false  and  superstitious  idea  of  a  Church  which  never  has  and 
never  can  overthrow  his  kingdom.  And  in  this  sense,  —  so 
far  as  Popery  is  priestcraft,  —  I  do  believe  it  to  be  the  very 
mystery  of  iniquity,  but  then  it  began  in  the  first  century, 
and  had  no  more  to  do  with  Rome  in  the  outset  than  witli 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  65 

Alexandria,  Antioch,  or  Carthage.  The  whole  confusion  of 
the  ideas  of  priesthood  and  government,  —  the  taking  half  a 
notion  from  one,  and  half  a  notion  from  the  other,  —  the  dis- 
claiming a  priesthood  and  yet  clinging  to  conclusions  which  are 
only  deducible  from  the  notion  of  a  priesthood,  —  and  the  want 
of  familiarity  with  all  political  questions  which  characterize 
all  that  I  have  ever  seen  written  on  English  High-Church 
grounds,  may  be  exposed  piece  by  piece  with  the  utmost  ease 

and  certainty I  am  for  the  Church,  and  against  the 

Priesthood  ;  not  for  individual  license  against  the  Church. 

CXLVI.      TO    J.    C.    PLATT,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  November  28,  1836. 

The  state  of  the  country  interests  me  as  much 

as  ever,  but  since  my  correspondence  with  the  Sheffield  Cou- 
rant,  I  have  written  nothing  on  the  subject.  I  do  not  like 
the  aspect  of  things  at  all.  An  extraordinary  period  of  com- 
mercial enterprise  threw  into  the  shade  for  the  time  all  those 
evils  in  the  state  of  the  laboring  population,  which  I  have 
ever  dreaded  as  the  rock  fatal  to  our  greatness ;  but,  mean- 
while, those  evils  were  not  removed,  nor  in  fact  attempted  to 
be  lessened,  except  by  the  Poor  Law  Act,  —  a  measure  in 
itself  wise  and  just,  but  which,  standing  alone,  and  unaccom- 
panied by  others  of  a  milder  and  more  positively  improving 
tendency,  wears  an  air  of  harshness,  and  will,  I  fear,  embitter 
the  feelings  of  the  poorer  classes  still  more.  Now  we  are 
threatened  by  a  most  unprincipled  system  of  agitation,  —  the 
Tories  actually  doing  their  best  to  Jacobinize  the  poor  in  the 
hope  of  turning  an  outbreak  against  the  Whig  government  to 
their  own  advantage.  Then  there  is  the  Currency  question, 
full  of  immense  difficulties,  which  no  man  can  clearly  see  his 
way  through.  And  withal  the  threatened  schism  between  the 
Whigs  and  Radicals  about  the  reform  of  the  House  of  Lords. 
Surely  there  never  was  such  folly  as  talking  about  a  reform  in 
the  House  of  Lords,  when  it  is  very  doubtful  whether,  if 
Parliament  were  dissolved,  the  Tories  would  not  gain  a  major- 
ity even  in  the  House  of  Commons.  It  is  nonsense  to  talk 
of  its  being  a  struggle  between  the  aristocracy  and  the  people : 
if  it  were  so,  it  would  be  over  in  a  week,  provided  they  mean 
by  the  aristocracy  the  House  of  Lords.  It  is  really  a  great 
contest  between  the  adherents  of  two  great  principles,  that  of 
preserving,  and  that  of  improving ;  and  he  must  have  studied 
6*  E 


66  LIFE  OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

history  to  very  little  purpose,  who  does  not  know  that  in 
common  circumstances  the  former  party  is  always  the  most 
numerous  and  the  strongest.  It  gets  occasionally  over- 
powered, when  it  has  had  rope  enough  given  it  to  hang  itself; 
that  is,  when  it  has  carried  its  favorite  Conservatism  to  such 
a  height,  that  the  mass  of  unreformed  evil  becomes  unendura- 
ble, and  then  there  comes  a  grand  reform.  But  that  grand 
reform  once  effected,  the  Conservative  instinct  again  regains 
it?  ascendency,  and  goes  on  upon  another  lease ;  and  so  it 
will  ever  do,  unless  some  rare  circumstances  enabled  a  thor- 
oughly enlightened  government  to  remain  long  in  power ; 
and  as  such  a  government  cannot  rely  on  being  popular, — 
for  reform  of  evil  in  the  abstract  is  gall  and  wormwood  alike 
to  men's  indolence,  and  love  of  what  they  are  used  to,  as  to 
their  propensities  for  jobbing,  —  so  it  is  only  accident  or  des- 
potism that  can  keep  it  on  its  legs.  This  is  the  secret  of  the 
Tory  reaction  ;  because  men  are  all  Tories  by  nature,  when 
they  are  tolerably  well  off,  and  it  is  only  some  monstrous  in- 
justice or  insult  to  themselves,  or  some  atrocious  cruelty,  or 
some  great  reverses  of  fortune,  that  ever  make  them  other- 
wise. Now  I  cannot  foresee  any  question  likely  to  arise  on 
which  the  Government  can  strongly  interest  the  public  mind 
in  England  in  their  favor.  Certainly  it  will  not  be  in  the 
Irish  Church  or  Corporation  questions,  because  the  English 
people  do  not  care  about  Ireland,  nor,  to  say  truth,  about  any 
people's  rights  except  their  own  ;  and  then  there  is  the  whole 
fanatical  feeling  against  the  Government,  and  fanaticism  is  a 
far  stronger  feeling  than  the  love  of  justice,  when  the  wrong 
is  done,  not  to  ourselves,  but  to  our  neighbor.  Therefore,  I 
think  that,  as  it  always  has  been,  the  Reformers  will  be  beaten 
by  the  Conservatives,  and  then  the  Conservatives  will  again 
go  on  coiling  the  rope  round  their  own  necks,  till  in  twenty 
years'  time  there  will  be  another,  not  reform  I  fear,  but  con- 
vulsion. For,  though  the  Reformers  are  a  weak  party,  the 
Destructives  are  not  so,  and  all  evils,  whether  arising  from 
accident  or  lolly,  or  misgovernment,  serve  their  purpose.  A 
great  man  in  the  Whig  Government  might  yet  save  them  per- 
haps ;  that  is,  might  keep  them  in  till  the  king's  death,  and 
then  they  would  have  a  chance,  I  suppose,  of  being  really 
supported  by  the  court  in  a  new  reign.  But  a  great  man  I 

cannot  see What  I  have  said  about  Tory  reaction, 

you  will  find  strongly  confirmed  in  the  history  of  the  French 
Revolution.  After  the  Terror  was  over,  the  Revolution  was 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  67 

twice  saved  only  by  the  army  ;  in  Vendemiaire,  1795,  and  in 
Fructidor,  1797.  Twice  the  counter-revolutionists  had  gained 
the  ascendency  in  the  nation.* 

CXLVII.      TO    MR.  JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  November  30,  1836. 

I  wish  I  could  sympathize  with  you  in  what  you 

say  of  our  old  Divines,  f  I  quite  agree  as  to  their  language  ; 
it  is  delightful  to  my  taste ;  but  I  cannot  find  in  any  of  them 
a  really  great  man.  I  admire  Taylor's  genius,  but  yet  how 
little  was  he  capable  of  handling  worthily  any  great  question  ! 
and,  as  to  interpreters  of  Scripture,  I  never  yet  found  one  of 
them  who  was  above  mediocrity.  I  cannot  call  it  a  learning 
worth  anything,  to  be  very  familiar  with  writers  of  this  stamp, 
when  they  have  no  facts  to  communicate :  for  of  course,  even 
an  ordinary  man  may  then  be  worth  reading.  I  have  left  off 
reading  our  Divines,  because,  as  Pascal  said  of  the  Jesuits, 
if  I  had  spent  my  time  in  reading  them  fully,  I  should  have 
read  a  great  many  very  indifferent  books.  But  if  I  could 
find  a  great  man  amongst  them,  I  would  read  him  thankfully 
and  earnestly.  As  it  is,  I  hold  John  BunyanJ  to  have  been  a 

#  "I  should  like,"  he  said,  "to  write  a  book  on  'the  Theory  of  Tides,' 
the  flood  and  ebb  of  parties.  The  English  nation  are  like  a  man  in  a 
lethargy  ;  they  are  never  roused  from  their  Conservatism  till  mustard 
poultices  are  put  to  their  feet.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  fires  in  Smithfield, 
they  would  have  remained  hostile  to  the  Reformation.  Had  it  not  been  for 
the  butcheries  of  Jefferies,  they  would  have  opposed  the  Revolution." 

t  Of  the  English  Divines  in  general,  this  was  his  deliberate  opinion:  — 
tt  Why  is  it,"  he  said,  "  that  there  are  so  few  great  works  in  Theology,  com- 
pared with  any  other  subject?  Is  it  that  all  other  books  on  the  subject 
appear  insignificant  by  the  side  of  the  Scriptures  ?  There  appears  to  me  in 
all  the  English  Divines  a  want  of  believing,  or  disbelieving  anything,  because 
it  is  true  or  false.  It  is  a  question  which  does  not  seem  to  occur  to  them. 
Butler  is  indeed  a  noble  exception."  As  he  excepted  Butler  among  the 
Divines  of  a  later  period,  so  amongst  those  of  the  earlier  period  he  excepted 
Hooker,  whose  Ecclesiastical  Polity,  as  a  whole,  he  regarded  with  great 
admiration,  though  with  great  dislike  of  parts  of  it.  "I  long  to  see  some- 
thing which  should  solve  what  is  to  me  the  great  problem  of  Hooker's  mind. 
He  is  the  only  man  that  I  know,  who,  holding  with  his  whole  mind  and 
soul  the  idea  of  the  eternal  distinction  between  moral  and  positive  laws, 
holds  with  it  the  love  for  a  priestly  and  ceremonial  religion,  such  as  appears 
in  the  Fifth  Book." 

t  His  admiration  of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  was  very  great:  —  "I  cannot 
trust  myself,"  he  used  to  say,  "to  read  the  account  of  Christian  going  up  to 
die  Celestial  gate,  after  his  passage  through  the  river  of  death."  And  when, 
in  one  of  the  foreign  tours  of  his  later  years,  he  had  read  it  through  again, 
after  a  long  interval,  "I  have  always,"  said  he,  "been  struck  by  its  piety: 
[  am  now  struck  equally,  or  evec  more,  by  its  profound  wisdom." 


68  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

man  of  incomparably  greater  genius  than  any  of  them,  and  to 
have  given  a  far  truer  and  more  edifying  picture  of  Chris- 
tianity. His  Pilgrim's  Progress  seems  to  be  a  complete  reflec- 
tion of  Scripture,  with  none  of  the  rubbish  of  the  theologians 
mixed  up  with  it.  I  think  that  Milton,  —  in  his  "  Reforma- 
tion in  England,"  or  in  one  of  his  Tracts,  I  forget  which,  — 
treats  the  Church  writers  of  his  time,  and  their  show  of  learn- 
ing, utterly  uncritical  as  it  was,  with  the  feeling  which  they 
deserved. 

CXLVIH.      TO    SIR    THOMAS    8.    PA8LET,  BART. 

Rugby,  December  14, 1836. 

The  view  which  you  mention  is  one  into  which  I 

suppose  no  one  ever  fell,  who  became  a  Christian  in  earnest 
through  the  workings  of  his  own  mind  and  heart,  and  through 
the  Scriptures.  That  is,  suppose  a  young  man,  when  he  be- 
gins to  think  seriously  upon  life,  resolving  to  turn  to  God,  and 
studying  the  Scriptures  to  learn  the  way,  —  it  is  clear  that  all 
this  stuff  about  the  true  Church  would  never  so  much  as 
come  into  his  head.  He  would  feel  and  see  that  the  matter 
of  his  soul's  salvation  lay  between  God  and  Christ  on  the  one 
hand,  and  himself  on  the  other ;  and  that  his  belonging  to 
this  or  that  Church  had  really  no  more  to  do  with  the  matter, 
than  his  being  born  in  France  or  England,  in  Westmoreland 
or  in  Warwickshire.  The  Scripture  notion  of  the  Church  is, 
that  religious  society  should  help  a  man  to  become  himself 
better  and  holier,  just  as  civil  society  helps  us  in  civilization. 
But  in  this  great  end  of  a  Church,  all  Churches  are  now 
greatly  defective,  while  all  fill  it  up  to  a  certain  degree,  some 
less,  others  more.  In  proportion  as  they  fulfil  it  less  perfectly, 
so  all  that  is  said  in  Scripture  of  divisions,  sects,  &c.,  becomes 
less  applicable.  It  is  a  great  fault  to  introduce  division  into 
an  unanimous  and  efficient  society ;  but  when  the  social  bond 
is  all  but  dissolved,  and  the  society  is  no  more  than  nominal, 
there  is  no  such  thing,  properly  speaking,  as  creating  a  division 
in  it  In  this  simple  and  scriptural  view  of  the  matter,  all  is 
plain ;  we  were  not  to  derive  our  salvation  through  or  from 
the  Church,  but  to  be  kept  or  strengthened  in  the  way  of  sal- 
vation by  the  aid  and  example  of  our  fellow-Christians,  who 
were  to  be  formed  into  societies  for  this  very  reason,  that  they 
might  help  one  another,  and  not  leave  each  man  to  fight  hia 
own  fight  alone.  But  the  life  of  these  societies  has  been  long 


LIFE    OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  69 

since  gone ;  they  do  not  help  the  individual  in  holiness,  and 
this  is  in  itself  evil  enough;  but  it  is  monstrous  that  they 
should  pretend  to  fetter,  when  they  do  not  assist.  This  view 
arises  simply  from  my  old  enemy,  the  priestcraft,  in  this  way. 
The  Popish  and  Oxford  view  of  Christianity  is,  that  the 
Church  is  the  mediator  between  God  and  the  individual :  that 
the  Church  (i.  e.  in  their  sense,  the  Clergy)  is  a  sort  of  char- 
tered corporation,  and  that  by  belonging  to  this  corporation, 
or  by  being  attached  to  it,  any  given  individual  acquires  such 
and  such  privileges.  This  is  a  priestcraft,  because  it  lays  the 
stress,  not  on  the  relations  of  a  man's  heart  towards  God  and 
Christ,  as  the  Gospel  does,  but  on  something  wholly  artificial 
and  formal,  —  his  belonging  to  a  certain  so-called  society ;  and 
thus,  —  whether  the  society  be  alive  or  dead,  —  whether  it 
really  help  the  man  in  goodness  or  not,  —  still  it  claims  to 
step  in  and  interpose  itself,  as  the  channel  of  grace  and  sal- 
vation, when  it  certainly  is  not  the  channel  of  salvation,  be- 
cause it  is  visibly  and  notoriously  no  sure  channel  of  grace. 
Whereas,  all  who  go  straight  to  Christ,  without  thinking  of 
the  Church,  do  manifestly  and  visibly  receive  grace,  and  have 
the  seal  of  His  Spirit,  and  therefore  are  certainly  heirs  of 
salvation.  This,  I  think,  applies  to  any  and  every  Church, 
it  being  always  true  that  the  salvation  of  a  man's  soul  is 
effected  by  the  change  in  his  heart  and  life,  wrought  by 
Christ's  spirit ;  and  that  his  relation  to  any  Church  is  quite  a 
thing  subordinate  and  secondary :  although,  where  the  Church 
is  what  it  should  be,  it  is  so  great  a  means  of  grace,  that  its 
benefits  are  of  the  highest  value.  But  the  heraldic  or  Suc- 
cession view  of  the  question  I  can  hardly  treat  gravely  :  there 
is  something  so  monstrously  profane  in  making  our  heavenly 
inheritance  like  an  earthly  estate,  to  which  our  pedigree  is 
our  title.  And  really,  what  is  called  Succession,  is  exactly  a 
pedigree,  and  nothing  better ;  like  natural  descent,  it  conveys 
no  moral  nobleness, —  nay,  far  less  than  natural  descent,  for  I 
am  a  believer  in  some  transmitted  virtue  in  a  good  breed,  but 
the  Succession  notoriously  conveys  none.  So  that,  to  lay  a 
stress  upon  it,  is  to  make  the  Christian  Church  worse,  I  think, 
than  the  Jewish :  but  "  the  sons  of  God  are  not  to  be  born  of 
bloods,"  (i.  e.  of  particular  races,)  "  nor  of  the  will  of  the 
flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of  man,"  (i.  e.  after  any  human  desire  to 
make  out  an  outward  and  formal  title  of  inheritance,)  "  but  of 
God,"  (i.  e.  of  Him  who  can  alone  give  the  only  true  title  to 
His  inheritance,  —  the  being  conformed  unto  the  image  of 


70  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

His  Son).  I  have  written  all  this  in  haste  as  to  the  expres- 
sion, but  not  at  all  in  haste  as  to  the  matter  of  it.  But  the 
simple  point  is  this :  Does  our  Lord,  or  do  his  Apostles,  en- 
courage the  notion  of  salvation  through  the  Church  ?  or  would 
any  human  being  ever  collect  such  a  notion  from  the  Scrip- 
tures ?  Once  begin  with  tradition,  and  the  so-called  Fathers, 
and  you  get,  no  doubt,  a  very  different  view.  This  the  Ro- 
manists and  the  Oxfordists  say  is  a  view  required  to  modify 
and  add  to  that  of  the  Scripture.  I  believe  that  because  it 
does  modify,  add  to,  and  wholly  alter  the  view  of  the  Scrip- 
ture, that  therefore  it  is  altogether  false  and  antichristian. 

CXLIX.      TO    J.    C.   PLATT,   ESQ. 

Fox  How,  February  4, 1837. 

I  have  to  thank  you  for  your  letter,  as  well  as  for  the  papers 
which  you  have  from  time  to  time  been  kind  enough  to  send 
me I  do  not  think  that  I  am  less  zealous  than  for- 
merly ;  but  I  feel  that,  if  I  write  briefly  and  without  giving 
all  the  grounds  of  my  opinions,  I  arn  constantly  misunder- 
stood :  and  to  give  the  grounds,  requires  a  volume,  rather 
than  half  a  column  in  the  newspaper.  For  instance,  on  this 
very  question  of  Church  Rates,  how  much  really  is  involved 
in  it?  If  the  Churches  are  public  buildings  for  a  national 
object,  then  how  can  a  minority  object  to  maintaining  them  ? 
If  they  are  only  to  be  maintained  by  those  who  belong  to  one 
religious  denomination,  it  strikes,  of  course,  at  the  very  root 
of  any  Establishment,  because  the  same  principle  must  apply 
equally  to  tithes.  I  am  sure  that,  sooner  or  later,  what  I  said 
in  the  Church  Reform  Pamphlet  will  be  verified  ;  either  the 
Church  must  be  more  comprehensive,  or,  if  this  be  impracti- 
cable, then  an  Establishment  cannot  be  maintained :  and  the 
next  best  thing  will  be,  to  take  care  that  all  the  Church  prop- 
erty is  applied  to  strictly  public  purposes,  to  schools,  hos- 
pitals, almshouses,  or  something  of  the  sort,  and  that  it  is 
not  stolen  by  the  landlords.  For  the  only  possible  way,  in 
which  there  can  be  a  robbery  of  public  property,  is  to  transfer 
it  to  private  uses  ;  this  is  a  direct  robbery,  committed  against 
ourselves  and  our  posterity ;  but  in  varying  the  particular 
public  object  to  which  it  is  applied,  there  may  be  great  folly, 
great  wickedness  in  the  sight  of  God,  but  not  the  especial 
crime  of  robbery  or  spoliation. 

Your  mention  of  the  Article  on  the  Life  of  Christ,  encour- 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  71 

ages  me  to  allude  to  it.  I  heard  it  spoken  of  before  I  had 
the  least  idea  of  its  author,  and  spoken  of  with  regret,  not  as 
unorthodox,  but  as  painful  to  a  Christian  reader  from  its 
purely  historical  tone.  Now  I  think  that  this  is  a  reasonable 
source  of  pain,  supposing  the  fact  to  be  as  stated ;  because, 
in  such  a  case,  neutrality  is  almost  the  same  as  hostility.  To 
read  an  account  of  Christ,  written  as  by  an  indifferent  person, 
is  to  read  an  unchristian  account  of  Him  ;  because  no  one 
who  acknowledges  Him  can  be  indifferent  to  Him,  but  stands 
in  such  relations  to  Him,  that  the  highest  reverence  must 
ever  be  predominant  in  his  mind  when  thinking  or  writing  of 
Him.  And  again,  what  is  the  impartiality  that  is  required  ? 
Is  it  that  a  man  shah1  neither  be  a  Christian,  nor  yet  not  a 
Christian  ?  The  fact  is,  that  religious  veneration  is  incon- 
sistent with  what  is  called  impartiality  ;  which  means,  that  as 
you  see  some  good  and  some  evil  on  both  sides,  you  identify 
yourself  with  neither,  and  are  able  to  judge  of  both.  And 
this  holds  good  with  all  human  parties  and  characters,  but 
not  with  what  is  divine,  and  consequently  perfect;  for  then 
we  should  identify  ourselves  with  it,  and  are  perfectly  inca- 
pable of  passing  judgment  upon  it.*  If  I  think  that  Christ 
was  no  more  than  Socrates,  (I  do  not  mean  in  degree,  but  in 
kind,)  I  can  of  course  speak  of  Him  impartially ;  that  is,  I 
assume  at  once  that  there  are  faults  and  imperfections  in 
His  character,  and  on  these  I  pass  my  judgment :  but,  if 
I  believe  in  Him,  I  am  not  His  judge,  but  His  servant  and 
creature  ;  and  He  claims  the  devotion  of  my  whole  nature, 
because  He  is  identical  with  goodness,  wisdom,  and  holiness. 
Nor  can  I  for  the  sake  of  strangers  assume  another  feeling, 
and  another  language,  because  this  is  compromising  the 
highest  duty,  —  it  is  like  denying  Him,  instead  of  confessing 
Him.  This  all  passed  through  my  mind  when  I  heard  that 
the  Article  was  written  in  a  purely  historical  tone,  and  yet 

*  On  similar  grounds  he  had  a  strong  feeling  against  Goethe.  "  That  one 
word  at  the  end  of  Faust  does  indeed  make  it  to  my  mind  a  great  work  in- 
stead of  a  piece  of  Devilry."  "  Still,"  he  said,  "  I  cannot  get  over  the  intro- 
duction. If  it  had  been  by  one  without  any  relation  to  God  or  his  fellow- 
creatures,  it  would  be  different  —  but  hi  a  human  being  it  is  not  to  be 
forgiven.  To  give  entirely  without  reverence  a  representation  of  God  is  in 
itself  blasphemous."  "  It  is  in  speaking  of  God  that  what  we  call  the  Bible, 
*aking  it  altogether,  through  and  through,  has  such  a  manifest  superiority  to 
everything  else.  When  the  Almighty  condescends  to  make  Himself  known, 
it  is  by  an  angel,  or  in  some  manner  that  keeps  all  safe.  What  can  be  more 
magnfficent  than  what  is  said  of  the  conversation  of  Abraham  before  the 
destruction  of  Sodom !  " 


72  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

stated  the  Resurrection  as  a  matter  of  fact.  Now,  if  the 
Resurrection  be  true,  Christianity  surely  is  true ;  and  then 
how  can  one  think  of  Christ  except  religiously  ?  A  very  able 
and  good  friend  of  mine  made  the  same  objection  to  Victor 
Cousin's  tone :  "  It  was,"  he  said,  "  a  patronizing  of  Chris- 
tianity ; "  that  is,  he  spoke  of  it  as  one  who  could  judge  it, 
and  looked  upon  it,  as  it  were,  de  loco  superiori,  —  a  condition 
inconsistent  altogether  with  the  relations  of  man  to  God, 
when  once  acknowledged.  Will  you  forgive  me  for  all  this,  — 
but  there  seems  to  me  rather  a  vague  notion  prevalent  about 
impartiality  and  fair  judgment  in  some  matters  of  religion, 
which  is  really  running  into  scepticism  as  to  all.  There  is 
abundant  room  for  impartiality  in  judging  of  religious  men, 
and  of  men's  opinions  about  religion,  just  as  of  their  opinions 
about  anything  else ;  but  with  regard  to  God  and  his  truth, 
impartiality  is  a  mere  contradiction  ;  and  if  we  profess  to  be 
impartial  about  all  things,  it  can  only  be  that  we  acknowledge 
in  none  that  mark  of  divinity  which  claims  devout  adherence, 
and  with  regard  to  which  impartiality  is  profaneness. 

CL.      TO    MR.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Fox  How,  February  6, 1837. 

I  must  write  to  you  from  Fox  How,  though  it  is  our  last 
evening  ;  and  to-morrow  we  set  out  to  return  to  Rugby. 
We  have  been  here  just  six  weeks  ;  and  six  weeks  of  greater 
peace  and  happiness  it  would  scarcely  be  possible,  I  suppose, 
for  any  one  to  pass.  In  this  neighborhood  there  has  been 
as  yet  no  influenza ;  no  snow  at  any  time  to  obstruct  commu- 
nication ;  no  rains  to  keep  us  within  doors,  nothing  more 
than  the  ordinary  varieties  of  winter,  containing  among  them 
days  of  such  surpassing  beauty,  that  at  no  time  of  the 
year  could  the  country  have  been  more  enjoyable.  You 
know  the  view  from  the  dining-room  ;  it  was  only  a  few 
mornings  since,  that  the  clouds  broke  away  from  the  summit 
of  Fairfield,  while  we  were  at  breakfast,  a  little  after  eight 
o'clock,  and  the  sun  just  threw  his  light  upon  the  crest  of  the 
mountain  all  covered  with  snow,  and  gave  it  the  rose  color 
which  you  have  seen  on  the  Alps  ;  while  all  the  lower  points 
of  the  hills,  and  all  the  side  of  Loughrigg,  wore  the  infinite 
variety  of  their  winter  coloring  of  green  and  gray  and  gold. 

We  have  had  two  of  our  Sixth  Form  boys  down 

here,  who  I  thought  wanted  the  refreshment  of  a  mountain 


LIFE  OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  73 

country,  as  they  had  been  working  rather  too  hard.  Mean- 
while my  History  has  been  flourishing ;  I  have  been  turning 
to  account  all  my  Roman  law  reading,  in  a  chapter  on  the 
Twelve  Tables,  and  I  have  carried  on  the  story  to  the  year  of 
Rome  350.  I  am  inclined  to  publish  one  volume,  when  I 
have  got  to  the  end  of  the  year  365,  the  Gaulish  invasion ; 
and  I  shall  have  plenty  of  matter  for  a  volume  :  but  whether 
I  am  not  yielding  to  a  movement  of  impatience  I  can  hardly 
say.  The  natural  divisions  of  the  subject  appear  to  me  to  be 
—  the  Gaulish  Invasion ;  the  Conquest  of  Italy,  after  the 
repulse  of  Pyrrhus ;  the  Conquest  of  the  World,  or  of  all 
that  could  offer  any  effectual  resistance,  in  the  Punic  and 
Macedonian  wars  ;  the  Civil  Wars  from  the  Gracchi  to 
Actium ;  the  Maturity  of  the  Empire  from  Augustus  to  M. 
Aurelius  ;  the  Decline  of  the  Empire  and  of  Paganism  from 
Commodus  to  Honorius ;  the  chaos  out  of  which  the  new 
creation  of  modern  society  has  come,  from  Alaric  to  Charle- 
magne. How  grand  a  subject,  if  it  could  be  written  worthily ! 
And  how  vast  a  variety  of  knowledge  is  required  to  do  it 
worthily !  I  constantly  feel  how  overpowering  the  labor  is, 
and  how  many  advantages  I  want ;  yet  I  feel,  too,  that  I 
have  the  love  of  history  so  strong  in  me,  and  that  it  has  been 
working  in  me  so  many  years,  that  I  can  write  something 
which  will  be  read,  and  which  I  trust  will  encourage  the  love 
of  all  things  noble  and  just,  and  wise  and  holy. 

The  study  of  the  law  is  quite  to  my  heart's 

content,  as  is  the  practice  of  it  in  your  situation.  I  think  if 
I  were  asked  what  station  within  possibility  I  would  choose 
as  the  prize  of  my  son's  well-doing  in  life,  I  should  say  the 
place  of  an  English  judge.  But  then,  in  proportion  to  my 
reverence  for  the  office  of  a  judge,  is,  to  speak  plainly,  my 

abhorrence  of  the  business  of  an  advocate I  have 

been  thinking,  in  much  ignorance,  whether  there  is  any  path 
to  the  bench  except  by  the  bar ;  that  is,  whether  in  convey- 
ancing, or  in  any  other  branch  of  the  profession,  a  man  may 
make  his  real  knowledge  available,  like  the  juris  consult!  of 
ancient  Rome,  without  that  painful  necessity  of  being  re- 
tained by  an  attorney  to  maintain  a  certain  cause,  and  of 
knowingly  suppressing  truth,  for  so  it  must  sometimes  hap- 
pen, in  order  to  advance  your  own  argument.  I  am  well 
aware  of  the  common  arguments  in  defence  of  the  practice ; 
still  it  is  not  what  I  can  myself  like.  On  the  other  hand, 
Medicine,  in  all  its  branches,  I  honor  as  the  most  beneficent 

VOL.    II.  7 


74  LIFE  OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

of  all  professions ;  but  there  I  dread  an  incidental  evil,  —  the 
intense  moral  and  religious  degradation  of  so  many  medical 
students,  who  are,  if  you  may  trust  report,  materialist  atheists 
of  the  greatest  personal  profligacy  ;  and  then  if  the  profligacy 
wear  out  with  age,  the  evil  principle  will  not ;  and  Satan 

will  be  but  cast  out  by  Satan 

We  are  going  to  Oxford,  I  believe,  before  we  finally  settle 
at  Rugby.  I  do  love  the  place  after  all,  though  I  sometimes 
think  of  the  fox's  exclamation  over  the  vizor  mask  —  KaXov 
irpovanrov,  K.  T.  A.  Forgive  my  profaneness  to  Alma  Mater, 
and  do  not  ascribe  it  to  any  academical  jealousy  in  behalf  of 
my  new  University  of  London,  of  which  I  am  a  most  poor 
Fellow. 

CLI.      TO   THE    REV.    G.    CORNISH. 

Fox  How,  February  5, 1837. 

Even  the  bustle  of  Fox  How  is  calmer  than  the  quiet  of 
Rugby.  We  are  going  away  to-morrow  morning,  and  it  is 
now  past  ten  o'clock ;  yet  I  know  not  when  I  can  sit  down  to 
write  so  peacefully,  as  I  can  in  this  last  hour  of  our  last  day's 
sojourn  at  this  most  dear  and  most  beautiful  home.  Thank 
you  very  much  for  your  letter.  I  will  not  revive  matters  of 
dispute  ;  what,  if  spoken,  would  be  known  at  once  to  be  half 
in  joke,  seems  in  writing  to  be  all  meant  in  sober  earnest ; 
and  therefore  our  discussions  shall  wait  till  that  day,  which,  I 
trust,  will  yet  arrive,  when  we  may  again  meet,  and  introduce 
some  of  our  children  to  each  other.  A  life  of  peace  is  one  of 
the  things  which  I  vainly  sigh  after.  If  you  can  live  out  of 
the  reach  of  controversy  and  party,  it  is  a  great  gain.  So  a 
quiet  country  parish  is  a  far  more  attractive  thing  than  the 
care  of  a  great  manufacturing  town  ;  but  my  lot,  and,  I  believe, 
my  duty  have  thrown  me,  as  it  were,  into  the  manufacturing 
town ;  and  I  must  contend  for  what  I  earnestly  believe  to  be 
truth.  Do  you  suppose  that  I  could  not  resign  myself  with 
delight  to  the  quiet  of  this  valley,  and  the  peace  of  these 
mountains,  if  so  might  be  ?  And  we  have  been  enjoying  it 
for  the  last  six  weeks  thoroughly.  The  climate  has  been 
better  than  in  almost  any  part  of  England.  We  had  no  snow 
here  to  stop  communication  for  half  an  hour ;  and  since  the 
snow  went  away  from  all  but  the  mountain  tops,  the  coloring 
of  the  country  has  been  delicious.  We  have  had  our  full 
share  of  walking;  whilst  all  the  morning,  till  one  o'clock,  I 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  75 

used  to  sit  in  one  corner  of  the  drawing-room,  not  looking 
towards  Fairfield  lest  I  should  be  constantly  tempted  from  my 
work,  and  there  I  worked  on  at  the  Roman  History  and  the 
Twelve  Tables,  and  Appius  Claudius,  and  Cincinnatus,  and 
all  the  rest  of  them. 

My  wife,  thank  God,  has  been  wonderfully  well  and  strong, 
and  climbs  the  mountains  with  the  rest  of  us.  And  little 
Fan,  who  was  three  years  old  in  October,  went  over  Lough- 
rigg  with  us  to  Rydal  the  other  day  —  though  her  little  feet 
looked  quite  absurd  upon  the  rough  mountain  side,  and  the 
fern-stalks  annoyed  her,  as  Gulliver  was  puzzled  by  the  Brob- 
dignag  cornfield 

We  were,  in  the  course  of  the  summer,  in  the  Isle  of  Man, 
and  in  Ireland.  I  admired  Dublin  and  its  bay,  and  the  Wick- 
low  Sugar  Loaf,  and  the  blue  sea  of  Killiney  Bay.  But  to 
my  astonishment,  the  "  Emerald  Isle "  was  a  very  parched 
and  dusty  isle  in  comparison  with  Westmoreland,  and  the 
Three  Rock  Mountain,  though  beautiful  with  its  granite  rocks 
and  heath,  had  none  of  the  thousand  springs  of  our  Lough- 
rigg.  Of  the  people  I  saw  little  or  nothing. 

We  expect  to  be  in  Oxford  one  day  this  week,  before  we 
settle  at  Rugby  for  our  long  half-year.  I  wonder  whether  I 
could  find  your  tree  in  Bagley  Wood,  on  which  you  once  sat 
exalted.  Do  you  ever  see  or  hear  of  old  Dyson,  or  of  Elli- 
son ?  or  do  you  hear  from  Tucker  ?  Coleridge,  as  you  per- 
haps know,  was  a  month  at  this  house  in  the  summer  with  all 
his  family ;  —  then,  on  their  way  to  town,  they  came  to  us  at 
Rugby,  and  there  met  Professor  Buckland ;  so  that,  after  an 
interval  of  many  years,  I  was  again  one  of  an  old  Corpus 
trio.  It  is  eleven  o'clock,  and  we  are  off  at  eight  to-morrow, 
so  good  night. 

CLII.       TO    THE    REV.    J.    HEARN. 

Yarrow  Bridge,  Chorley,  Feb.  6, 1837. 

I  call  all  this  Judaizing  a  direct  idolatry ;  —  it  is 

exalting  the  Church  and  the  Sacraments  into  the  place  of 
Christ,  as  others  have  exalted  His  mother,  and  others  in  the 
same  spirit  exalted  circumcision.  There  is  something  almost 
'udicrous,  if  the  matter  were  not  too  serious,  in  the  way  in 
which  —  —  speaks  of  Calvin,  and  the  best  and  ablest  of  his 
followers,  and  some  of  the  great  living  writers  of  Germany, 
whom  he  must  know,  as  of  men  laboring  under  a  judicial 


76  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

blindness.  "  This  people  who  knoweth  not  the  law,"  i.  e.  as 
interpreted  by  the  tradition  and  doctors  of  the  Church,  "  arc 
accursed."  It  is  vain  to  argue  with  such  men,  only  when 
they  ascribe  a  judicial  blindness  to  Calvin  and  Zuingle,  or  to 
Tholuck,  Nitzsch,  and  Bunsen,  one  cannot  but  be  reminded 
of  those  who  "  with  lies  made  the  heart  of  the  righteous  sad, 
whom  God  had  not  made  sad,"  or  of  those  who  denied  St. 
Paul's  apostleship  and  spirituality,  because  he  was  not  one  of 
the  original  twelve  Apostles,  and  because  he  would  not  preach 
circumcision. 

No  man  doubts  that  a  strictly  universal  consent  would  be 
a  very  strong  argument  indeed ;  but  then  by  the  very  fact  of 
its  being  disputed,  it  ceases  to  be  universal ;  and  general  con- 
sent is  a  very  different  thing  from  universal.  It  becomes 
then  the  consent  of  the  majority ;  and  we  must  examine  the 
nature  of  the  minority,  and  also  the  peculiar  nature  of  the 
opinions  or  practices  agreed  in,  before  we  can  decide  whether 
general  consent  be  really  an  argument  for  or  against  the  truth 
of  an  opinion.  For  it  has  been  said,  "  Woe  unto  you,  when 
all  men  shall  speak  well  of  you ; "  and  then  it  would  be  equally 
true  of  such  a  generation  or  generations,  that  it  was,  "  Woe 
to  that  opinion  in  which  all  men  agree." 

Now  I  believe  that  the  Apostles'  Creed  may  be  taken  as  a 
specimen  of  truths  held  by  the  general  consent  of  Christians ; 
for  everything  there  (except  the  Descent  into  Hell,  which 
was  a  later  insertion)  is  in  almost  the  very  words  of  Scrip- 
ture. It  is  just  like  St.  Paul's  short  creed  in  1  Corinthians, 
xv :  "I  delivered  unto  you  that  which  I  received,  how  that 
Christ  died  for  our  sins  according  to  the  Scriptures,  and  was 

buried,"  &c.  But  this  Creed  will  no  more  suit 's  turn 

than  the  Scriptures  themselves  will.  It  says  not  a  word  of 
priesthood  or  succession,  —  it  does  not  even  say  a  word  of 

either  Sacrament.  The  points  for  which  needs  the 

consent  of  the  Church,  are  points  on  which  the  principal 
ecclesiastical  writers,  from  whom  he  gleans  this  consent,  had 
all  a  manifest  bias ;  partly  from  their  own  position  as  minis- 
ters, partly  from  the  superstitious  tendencies  of  their  age. 
And  after  all  how  few  are  those  writers !  Who  would  think 
of  making  out  the  universal  consent  of  the  Christian  world 
from  the  language  of  ten  or  a  dozen  bishops  or  clergy  who 
happened  to  be  writers  ?  Who  will  bear  witness  to  the 
opinions  of  the  Bithynian  Church,  of  whose  practice  Pliny 
has  left  so  beautiful  a  picture?  Or  who  would  value  for  any 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  77 

Church,  or  for  any  opinion,  the  testimony  of  such  a  man  as 
Tertullian  ?  But,  after  all,  consent  would  go  for  nothing 
where  it  is  so  clearly  against  Scripture.  All  in  Asia  were 
turned  away  from  Paul,  even  in  his  lifetime.  [No  wonder] 
then,  if  after  his  death  they  could  not  bear  his  doctrines,  and 
undermined  them  while  they  were  obliged  outwardly  to  honor 
[them].  The  operation  of  material  agency  to  produce  a 
spiritual  effect  [is  not]  more  opposed  to  reason  than  it  is 

directly  denied  by  our  Lord,  on  grounds  which would 

call  rationalistic,  if  I  were  to  use  them.  I  refer  to  what  he 
says  of  the  impossibility  of  meat  defiling  a  man,  or  water  puri- 
fying him ;  and  the  reason  assigned  to  show  that  meat  cannot 
morally  defile  is  of  course  equally  valid  to  show  that  it  cannot 
morally  strengthen  or  cleanse.  I  believe  it  might  be  shown 
that  the  efficacy  of  the  Sacrament  of  the  Lord's  Supper  has 
been  weakened  directly  by  the  superstitions  about  it ;  that  in 
proportion  as  a  value  was  attached  to  the  elements,  as  they 
were  called,  so  the  real  Christian  Sacramentum,  —  each  man 
pledging  himself  to  Christ  and  to  his  brethren,  upon  the  sym- 
bols of  his  redemption  and  sanctification,  —  became  less  and 
less  regarded ;  whilst  superstitions  made  the  Sacrament  less 
frequent,  and  thus  have  inflicted  a  grievous  injury  on  the 
spiritual  state  of  every  Church. 

CLHI.      TO    W.    W.   HULL,  ESQ. 

Rugby,  March  3, 1837. 

About  the  grammars,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 

the  common  Eton  grammars,  purged  of  their  manifest  faults, 
would  answer  better  than  anything  else.  I  am  more  and 
more  in  favor  of  a  Latin  rather  than  an  English  grammar, 
and  I  think  that  the  simpler  and  more  dogmatical  the  rules 
are,  the  better.  That  is  best  in  a  boy's  grammar  which  can 
be  easiest  remembered,  and  understood  enough  to  be  applied 
practically;  the  explanation  of  the  principles  of  grammar 
belongs  to  a  more  advanced  age. 

By  "  manifest  faults,"  I  mean  such  as  calling  "  hie,  hsec, 
hoc,"  an  article ;  or  teaching  boys  to  believe  that  there  is  such 
a  word  as  "TVTTOV,  or  such  an  Aorist  to  A/y<o  as  eXeyov,  and  other 
monstrosities.  And  I  think  such  corrections  might  be  made 
easily.  But  let  us  save  "  Verba  dandi  et  reddendi,"  &c.,  and, 
if  I  dared,  I  would  put  in  a  word  for  "  As  in  praesenti,"  per- 
haps even  for  "  Propria  quae  maribus."  Is  not  this  a  laudable 


78  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

specimen  of  Toryism  ?     Or  is  it  that  we  are  Reformers  in  our 
neighbors'  trade  and  Conservatives  in  our  own  ? 

CLIV.      TO    GEORGE   PRYME,  ESQ.,    M.    P. 

Rugby,  March  8, 1837. 

I  thank  you  much  for  your  letter :  —  I  had  regarded  your 
intended  motion  respecting  the  Universities  with  the  deepest 
interest,  and  feel  therefore  extremely  obliged  to  you  for  allow- 
ing me  to  express  some  of  my  views  on  the  matter  to  you. 
As  to  the  great  question  of  all,  the  admission  of  Dissenters, 
it  is  so  mixed  up  with  the  still  greater  question  of  the  Church, 
that  I  hardly  know  how  to  separate  them :  —  and  besides,  I 
imagine  that  nothing  on  this  point  could  be  carried  now. 
But  there  are  three  points  at  Oxford,  which,  though  of  very 
different  importance,  might  all,  I  think,  be  noticed  with  advan- 
tage. 

1st.  The  system  of  fines;  —  I  do  not  mean  as  regards  the 
tenant,  but  as  regards  those  members  of  the  College  Founda- 
tions who  do  not  belong  to  the  governing  body.  It  is  the 
practice  I  believe  to  divide  the  Corn  Rents  either  equally,  or 
in  certain  fixed  proportions  fixed  by  the  Founder,  among  all 
the  members  of  the  Foundation ;  —  but  the  fines,  which  form 
always  a  large  proportion  of  the  gross  income  of  the  College, 
are  divided  exclusively  by  the  governing  body  amongst  them- 
selves ;  where  this  governing  body  includes  all  the  Fellows, 
as  at  Oriel,  Corpus,  and  New  College,  then  those  who  do  not 
share  the  fines  are  only  the  Scholars  and  Probationer  Fel- 
lows;  but  where  it  consists  of  what  is  called  a  seniority, 
seven,  or  whatever  number  it  be,  of  the  senior  Fellows,  then 
all  the  Fellows  not  on  the  seniority  are  excluded  ;  and  this  is 
the  case  at  Brasenose.*  Now  the  question  is,  whether  this 
is  according  to  the  Founder's  intentions,  or  whether  it  has 
been  legalized  by  any  subsequent  statute  —  of  the  realm,  I 
mean,  not  of  the  University.  The  fines  originally  were  a 
direct  bribe  paid  by  the  tenant  to  the  Bursar  or  Treasurer  of 
the  college,  for  letting  him  renew  on  favorable  terms:  —  sub- 
sequently the  bursars  were  not  allowed  to  keep  it  all  to  them- 
selves, but  it  was  shared  by  all  those  with  whom  lay  the  power 
of  either  granting  or  refusing  the  renewal.  But  still,  if  the 
college  property  be  notoriously  underlet,  because  a  great  part 

*  This  case  is  at  present  waiting  the  decision  of  the  Visitor  of  the  College. 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  79 

of  the  rent  is  paid  in  the  shape  of  fines,  those  who  are  entitled 
to  a  certain  share  in  the  proceeds  are  manifestly  defrauded  if 
they  are  not  allowed  their  proportion  of  the  fines  also.  This 
question  only  affects  the  members  of  the  several  foundations 
as  individuals ;  —  still,  it  has  always  struck  me  as  a  great  un- 
fitness,  that  a  system  should  go  on  with  such  a  prima  facie 
look  of  direct  fraud  about  it. 

2d.  All  members  of  foundations  are  required  to  take  an 
oath  to  maintain  the  rights  of  the  college,  &c.,  and  amongst 
other  things  they  swear  that  if  expelled  by  the  college  they 
will  not  appeal  to  any  court  of  law.  This  oath  is  imposed  at 
Winchester  College,  or  was  in  my  time,  on  every  boy  as  soon 
as  he  was  fifteen.  I  object  utterly,  on  principle,  to  any  pri- 
vate society  administering  an  oath  to  its  members  at  all, — 
still  more  so  to  boys :  —  but  even  if  it  were  a  promise  or  engage- 
ment, the  promise  of  not  appealing  to  the  King's  Courts  is 
monstrous,  and  savors  completely  of  the  spirit  of  secret  soci- 
eties, who  regard  the  law  as  their  worst  enemy.  The  Univer- 
5ity  has  lately  repealed  some  of  its  oaths  —  but  it  still  retains 
/ar  too  many. 

3d.  The  University  should  be  restored,  —  that  is,  the  mo- 
nopoly of  the  colleges  should  be  taken  away,  —  by  allowing 
any  Master  of  Arts,  according  to  the  old  practice  of  Oxford, 
to  open  a  hall  for  the  reception  of  students.  The  present 
practice  dates,  I  think,  from  the  age  of  Elizabeth,  —  when 
the  old  halls  had  fallen  into  decay ;  and  then  the  gift  of  the 
headship  of  the  existing  halls  was  placed  in  the  Chancellor's 
hands,  and  every  member  of  the  University  was  required  to 
be  a  member  of  some  college,  or  of  one  of  these  recognized 
halls.  The  evils  of  the  present  system,  combined  with  a 
statute  passed,  I  believe,  within  the  present  century,  obliging 
every  under-graduate  under  three  years'  standing  to  sleep  in 
college,  are  very  great.  The  number  of  members  at  a  college 
is  regulated  therefore  by  the  size  of  its  buildings,  and  thus 
some  of  the  very  worst  colleges  have  the  greatest  number  of 
votes  in  Convocation,  and  consequently  the  greatest  influence 
in  the  decisions  of  the  University.  I  am  obliged  to  be  brief, 
- —  but  this  point  is,  I  am  sure,  of  the  greatest  importance,  and 
might  open  the  door  to  much  good.  I  am  not  at  all  able  to 
answer  for  all  the  details  of  the  matters  which  I  have  men- 
tioned, and  you  know  how  readily  the  enemy  would  exult  if 
he  can  detect  the  slightest  inaccuracy  in  detail,  and  how  gladly 
he  will  avail  himself  of  such  a  triumph  to  lead  away  men's 


80  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

minds  from  the  real  question.  But  I.  think  all  the  three  points 
which  I  have  named  are  of  importance.  I  am  delighted  that 
you  should  take  up  this  question.  No  man  ought  to  meddle 
with  the  Universities  who  does  not  know  them  well  and  love 
them  well;  they  are  great  and  noble  places,  —  and  I  am  sure 
that  no  man  in  England  has  a  deeper  affection  for  Oxford 
than  I  have,  —  or  more  appreciates  its  inimitable  advantn,Lr< -. 
And  therefore  I  wish  it  improved  and  reformed  —  though  thi- 
is  a  therefore  which  men  are  exceedingly  slow  to  understand. 

CLV.      TO    CRABBE   ROBINSON,    ESQ. 

(Who  had  written  to  him  fearing  he  would  not  continue  in  the  New  Uni- 
versity unless  more  were  done  in  the  examinations  as  to  Theology,  than 
could  or  would  be  effected.) 

March  15,  1837. 

First,  be  assured  that  I  will  do  nothing  hastily, 

that  I  wish  most  earnestly  well  to  the  London  University, 
and  look  upon  it  as  so  great  a  possible  means  of  good,  that 
lothing  but  what  will  appear  to  me  imperious  duty  shall 
iempt  me  to  leave  it.  Neither  have  I  the  least  thought  or 
wish  of  conciliating  the  Tories ;  on  the  contrary,  I  regret 
nothing  so  much  as  the  possibility  of  appearing  to  agree  with 
them  in  anything ;  neither,  in  fact,  can  I  believe  that  I  ever 
shall  be  so  far  mistaken. 

Secondly,  I  have  no  wish  to  have  Degrees  in  Divinity 
conferred  by  the  London  University  or  to  have  a  Theological 
Faculty  ;  I  am  quite  content  with  Degrees  in  Arts.  But 
then  let  us  understand  what  Arts  are. 

If  Arts  mean  merely  logic  or  grammar,  or  arithmetic,  or 
natural  science,  then  of  course  a  degree  in  Arts  implies 
nothing  whatever  as  to  a  man's  moral  judgment  or  prin- 
ciples. But  open  the  definition  a  little  farther,  —  include 
poetry  or  history  or  moral  philosophy,  —  and  you  encroach 
unavoidably  on  the  domain  of  moral  education  ;  and  moral 
education  cannot  be  separated  from  religious  education,  unless 
people  have  the  old  superstitious  notion  of  religion,  either 
that  it  relates  to  rites  and  ceremonies,  or  to  certain  abstract 
and  unpractical  truths.  But,  meaning  by  Religion  what  the 
Gospel  teaches  one  to  mean  by  it,  it  is  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  a  system  directing  and  influencing  our  conduct,  prin- 
ciples, and  feelings,  and  professing  to  do  this  with  sover- 
eign authority,  and  most  efficacious  influence.  If  then  I 
enter  on  the  domain  of  moral  knowledge,  I  am  thereby  on 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  81 

the  domain  of  religious  knowledge ;  and  the  only  question 
is,  what  religion  am  I  to  follow?  If  I  take  no  notice  of 
the  authority  and  influences  of  Christianity,  I  unavoidably 
take  a  view  of  man's  life  and  principles  from  which  they  are 
excluded,  that  is,  a  view  which  acknowledges  some  other 
authority  and  influence,  —  it  may  be  of  some  other  religion, 
or  of  some  philosophy,  or  of  mere  common  opinion  or  in- 
stinct ;  —  but,  in  any  case,  I  have  one  of  the  many  views 
of  life  and  conduct,  which  it  was  the  very  purpose  of 
Christ's  coming  into  the  world  to  exclude.  And  how  can 
any  Christian  man  lend  himself  to  the  propagating  or 
sanctioning  a  system  of  moral  knowledge  which  assumes 
that  Christ's  law  is  not  our  rule,  nor  His  promises  our 
motive  of  action  ?  This,  then,  is  my  principle,  that  moral 
studies  not  based  on  Christianity  must  be  unchristian,  and 
therefore  are  such  as  I  can  take  no  part  in. 

On  the  other  hand,  I  allow  as  fully  as  you  can  do,  that 
the  University  should  include  Christians  of  every  denomi- 
nation without  the  slightest  distinction.  The  differences 
between  Christian  and  Christian  are  not  moral  differences, 
except  accidentally ;  and  that  is  what  I  meant  in  that  pas- 
sage in  the  Church  Reform  Pamphlet  which  you,  in  common 
with  many  others,  have  taken  in  a  sense  which  I  should 
wholly  disclaim.  An  Unitarian,  as  such,  is  a  Christian  ;  that 
is,  if  a  man  follows  Christ's  law,  and  believes  His  words  ac- 
cording to  his  conscientious  sense  of  their  meaning,  he  is  a 
Christian  ;  and,  though  I  may  think  he  understands  Christ's 
words  amiss,  yet  that  is  a  question  of  interpretation,  and  no 
more ;  the  purpose  of  his  heart  and  mind  is  to  obey  and  be 
guided  by  Christ,  and  therefore  he  is  a  Christian.  But  I 
believe,  —  if  I  err  as  to  the  matter  of  fact  I  shall  greatly 
rejoice,  —  that  Unitarianism  happens  to  contain  many  persons 
who  are  only  Unitarians  negatively,  as  not  being  Trini- 
tarians ;  and  I  question  whether  these  follow  Christ  with 
enough  of  sincerity  and  obedience  to  entitle  them  to  be 
called  Christians. 

Then  comes  the  question  of  practicability.  Here  un- 
doubtedly I  am  met  at  a  disadvantage,  because  the  whole 
tendency  of  the  last  century,  and  of  men's  minds  now,  is  to 
shun  all  notions  of  comprehension  ;  and  as  the  knot  was 
once  cut  by  persecution,  so  it  is  to  be  cut  now  by  toleration 
and  omission. 

But  it  is  an  experiment  undoubtedly  worth  trying,  whether 


82  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

for  the  sake  of  upholding  the  Christian  character  of  our 
University,  we  ought  not  to  venture  on  ground,  new  indeed  in 
England,  just  at  present,  but  which  is  of  the  veiy  essence  of 
true  Christianity.  With  all  Chri8tians  except  Roman  Catho- 
lics the  course  is  plain,  namely,  to  examine  every  candi- 
date for  a  degree  in  one  of  the  Gospels  and  one  of  the 
Epistles  out  of  the  Greek  Testament.  I  would  ask  of  every 
man  the  previous  question,  "  To  what  denomination  of  Chris- 
tians do  you  belong  ?  "  and  according  to  his  answer,  I  would 
specially  avoid  touching  on  those  points,  on  which  I  as  a 
Churchman  differed  from  him.  I  should  probably  say  to 
him  aloud,  if  the  examination  were  public,  "  Now  I  know 
that  you  and  I  differ  on  such  and  such  points,  and  therefore 
I  shall  not  touch  on  them ;  but  we  have  a  great  deal  more  on 
which  we  agree,  and  therefore  I  may  ask  you  so  and  so." 
"With  the  Roman  Catholics  there  might  be  a  difficulty, 
because  they  might  possibly  object  to  being  examined  by 
heretics,  or  in  the  Scriptures  ;  but  if  so,  where  would  be 
the  difficulty  of  adding  a  Catholic  to  the  number  of  Fellows, 
on  purpose  for  this  object  ;  or  where  would  be  the  diffi- 
culty of  requiring  from  the  candidate,  being  a  Catholic,  a 
certificate  of  proficiency  in  religious  knowledge  from  his  own 
priest  or  bishop  ?  What  you  state  about  doctrines  might  be 
a  very  good  argument  against  examining  in  any  Articles  or 
Creeds,  but  would  not  affect  the  examination  in  a  book  or 
books  of  the  Scripture  ;  and  so  again  with  evidences,  I 
should  not  care  about  this  ;  though  neither  do  I  see  that 
your  reference  to  Chalmers  makes  a  valid  objection  ;  because 
you  will  and  must  have  Examiners  who  differ  on  fifty  points 
of  taste,  of  politics,  and  of  philosophy  ;  but  this  signifies 
nothing,  as  long  as  they  are  sensible  men ;  and,  if  they  are 
not,  the  whole  thing  must  break  down  any  way.  But  the 
comparative  value  of  external  and  internal  Evidence  is  not  a 
point  which  forms  the  characteristic  difference  between  any 
one  sect  and  another ;  it  may  therefore  be  noticed  without 
any  delicacy,  just  like  any  moot  point  in  history  ;  and  an  Ex- 
aminer may  express  his  judgment  on  it,  though  of  course 
with  such  reserve  and  moderation  as  he  may  think  fit.  If 
you  say  that  all  points  which  have  ever  been  disputed  are 
to  be  avoided,  you  reduce  your  Examiners  to  such  mere 
ciphers  as  would  deprive  them  of  all  weight  and  dignity. 
Certainly  I  shall  feel  myself  as  in  a  certain  degree  appointed 
to  moderate  and  form  the  minds  of  those  who  come  to  me  for 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  82 

academical  honors.  I  ought  to  express  my  judgment  on 
many  matters  as  that  of  a  mau  qualified  to  instruct  them, 
and  as  entitled  to  an  authority  with  them.  You  will  not 
suppose  I  mean  an  infallible  authority.  If  our  office  be  not 
intended  to  be  this,  it  will  be  a  great  mistake,  and  indeed 
a  total  solecism,  as  far  as  regards  education.  I  am  perfectly 
aware  of  the  delicacy  of  our  task  as  well  as  of  its  importance, 
and  I  think  I  would  undertake  to  manage  it  discreetly;  but 
much  must  be  left  to  us.  Let  them  choose  the  best  men 
they  can  find,  and  then  let  them  trust  them  fully,  and  turn 
them  out  if  they  do  not  like  them. 

CLVI.       TO    SIR    THOMAS    S.    PASLEY,    BART. 

Rugby,  April  21, 1837. 

Our  one  day's  visit  to  Oxford  was  very  delight 

ful,  it  was  full  of  kindlinesses  without  anything  of  a  contrary 
sort ;  and  it  made  me  wish  that  I  could  see  the  place  and  its 
residents  oftener.  I  am  so  thoroughly  fond  of  it,  that  I  can 
quite  trust  myself  in  my  earnest  desire  to  see  it  reformed ; 
indeed,  I  should  care  about  its  reform  much  less  if  I  did  not 
value  it  so  highly.  From  Oxford  we  came  back  to  our  work 

as  usual From  that  time  forward  we  have  never 

been  quite  alone,  and  we  are  expecting  other  friends  in  May 
and  June,  so  that  our  half-year  will,  as  usual,  I  suppose,  end 
in  a  crowd  ;  and  then  I  trust  we  may  meet  in  something  like 
summer  in  Westmoreland,  and  find  you  established  in  your 
house,  and  enjoying  the  magnificence  of  the  view  and  the 
snugness  of  that  delicious  glady  field  behind,  which  lives 
most  vividly  in  my  memory 

I  have  read  nothing  but  books  connected  with  my  own 
business,  so  I  am  sadly  ignorant  of  what  is  doing  in  the  pub- 
lishing world.  Jacob  Abbott's  last  work,  "The  Way  to  do 
Good,"  will  I  think  please  you  very  much ;  with  some  Amer- 
icanisms, not  of  language  but  of  mind,  it  is  yet  delightful  to 
read  a  book  so  good  and  so  sensible  ;  so  zealous  for  what  is 
valuable ;  so  fair  about  what  is  indifferent.  I  have  also 
looked  through  some  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  Dispatches. 
He  is  different  enough  certainly  from  Abbott,  but  the  work 
gives  one  a  favorable  impression  of  him  morally,  I  think,  as 
well  as  intellectually :  *  there  is  a  frankness  and  kindliness 

#  His  impression  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington's  character  was  in  fact  con- 
efderably  raised  by  this  work,  and  a  volume  of  the  Dispatches  was  one  of 
the  books  which  most  frequently  accompanied  him  when  travelling. 


84  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

about  his  letters  generally  which  is  very  attractive,  and  one 
admires  the  activity  and  comprehensiveness  of  view  which 
could  take  in  so  much  and  so  execute  it.  You  would  be 
interested  in  Sir  E.  Codrington's  strange  attack  upon  Sir 
Pulteney  Malcolm,  and  gratified  by  the  strong  feeling  gener- 
ally expressed  in  Sir  Pulteney's  favor,  and  in  admiration  of 

his  character 

I  shall  like  to  hear  your  remarks  on  the  weather.  I  never 
remember  anything  to  equal  it ;  but  I  find  from  the  Gentle- 
man's Magazine  that  1799  was  very  nearly  as  bad,  and  from 
Evelyn's  Memoirs  that  1658  was  rather  worse.  The  wind 
was  northerly  for  nearly  six  months,  and  on  the  second  of 
June  (old  style)  the  season  was  as  cold  as  winter.  It  is  cer- 
tainly so  at  present ;  and  what  is  remarkable  is,  that  the 
wind  blows  equally  cold  from  all  points  of  the  compass.  I 
connect  the  constant  northwest  winds  with  the  Magnetic 
Pole,  and  as  all  phenomena  of  weather  have  to  do  with  elec- 
tricity and  volcanic  action,  I  should  not  be  surprised  to  hear 
of  something  extraordinary  in  the  way  of  earthquakes  or  erup- 
tions before  the  end  of  the  year.  This  is  a  sad  dull  letter, 
but  my  life  affords  but  little  variety. 

CLVH.      TO    AN    OLD    PUPIL,     (c.) 

Rugby,  April  5, 1837. 

I  take  this  opportunity  to  answer  your  kind  and  interesting 
letter,  for  which  I  beg  you  to  accept  my  best  thanks.  I  can 
hardly  answer  it  as  I  could  wish,  but  I  did  not  h'ke  to  delay 
writing  to  you  any  longer.  Your  account  of  yourself  and  of 
that  unhealthy  state  of  body  and  mind  under  which  you  have 
been  laboring,  was  very  touching  to  me.  I  rejoice  that  you 
were  recovering  from  it,  but  still  you  must  not  be  surprised  if 
God  should  be  pleased  to  continue  your  trials  for  some  time 
longer.  It  is  to  me  a  matter  of  the  deepest  thankfulness, 
that  the  fears  which  I  at  one  time  had  expressed  to  you  about 
yourself,  have  been  so  entirely  groundless  :  we  have  the  com- 
fort of  thinking  that,  with  the  heart  once  turned  to  God,  and 
going  on  in  His  faith  and  fear,  nothing  can  go  very  wrong 
with  us,  although  we  may  have  much  to  suffer  and  many 
trials  to  undergo.  I  rejoice  too  that  your  mind  seems  to  be 
in  a  healthier  state  about  the  prosecution  of  your  studies.  I 
am  quite  sure  that  it  is  a  most  solemn  duty  to  cultivate  our 
understandings  to  the  uttermost,  for  I  have  seen  the  evij 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  85 

moral  consequences  of  fanaticism  to  a  greater  degree  than  I 
ever  expected  to  see  them  realized  ;  and  I  am  satisfied  that  a 
neglected  intellect  is  far  oftener  the  cause  of  mischief  to  a  man, 
than  a  perverted  or  overvalued  one.  Men  retain  their  natu- 
ral quickness  and  cleverness,  while  their  reason  and  judgment 
are  allowed  to  go  to  ruin,  and  thus  they  do  work  their  minds 
and  gain  influence,  and  are  pleased  at  gaining  it ;  but  it  is 
the  undisciplined  mind  which  they  are  exercising,  instead  of 
one  wisely  disciplined.  I  trust  that  you  will  gain  a  good 
foundation  of  wisdom  in  Oxford  ;  which  may  minister  in  after 
years  to  God's  glory  and  the  good  of  souls  ;  and  I  call  by  the 
name  of  wisdom,  —  knowledge,  rich  and  varied,  digested  and 
combined,  and  pervaded  through  and  through  by  the  light  of 
the  Spirit  of  God.  Remember  the  words,  "  Every  scribe  in- 
structed to  the  kingdom  of  God  is  like  unto  a  householder 
who  bringeth  out  of  his  treasures  things  new  and  old: "  that  is, 
who  does  not  think  that  either  the  first  four  centuries  on  the 
one  hand,  nor  the  nineteenth  century  on  the  other,  have  a 
monopoly  of  truth  ;  but  who  combines  a  knowledge  of  one 
with  that  of  the  other,  and  judges  all  according  to  the  judg- 
ment which  he  has  gained  from  the  teaching  of  the  Scriptures. 
I  am  obliged  to  write  more  shortly  than  I  could  wish  ;  let  me 
hear  from  you  when  you  can,  and  see  you  when  you  can,  and 
be  sure  that,  whether  my  judgments  be  right  or  wrong,  you 
have  no  friend  who  more  earnestly  would  wish  to  assist  you  in 
that  only  narrow  road  to  life  eternal,  which  I  feel  sure  that 
you  by  God's  grace  are  now  treading. 

CLVIII.       TO    BISHOP    OTTER. 

Rugby,  April  30,  1837. 

I  venture  to  address  you,  and  I  trust  to  your  forgiveness 
for  so  doing,  on  a  subject  on  which  we  have  a  common  inter- 
est, the  new  University  of  London  ;  and  I  am  the  more  in- 
duced to  address  you  particularly,  as  I  understand  that  you 
are  disposed  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  arrangements  to  be 
made  ;  as  you  have  had  practical  experience  in  education ; 
and  as  you  are  one  of  the  few  members  of  our  profession  who 
happen  to  belong  to  the  University.  I  imagine,  also,  that 
the  particular  department  with  which  I  am  likely  to  be  con- 
cerned, will  be  that  in  which  you  too  will  be  most  interested, 
the  Examination  for  Degrees  in  Arts.  And  I  find  that  a 
committee  was  to  be  appointed  yesterday,  to  draw  up  some* 


86  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

thing  of  a  plan  on  this  subject.  I  hope  to  be  in  town  very 
shortly,  but  my  visit  must  necessarily  be  very  brief,  and  I 
feel  that  I  should  much  further  my  views,  if  I  could  explain 
them  to  your  Lordship  beforehand,  and  above  all,  if,  as  I  hope, 
I  shall  be  so  happy  as  to  find  that  you  agree  with  them. 

I  need  not  say  that  I  cordially  agree  with  the  principle  of 
the  University,  that  it  recognizes  no  sectarian  distinctions. 
But  while  I  fully  allow  this,  I  also  find  it  expressly  declared 
in  our  charter,  that  we  are  founded  for  the  advancement  of 
"  Religion  and  Morality."  And  this  seems  to  lead  to  the 
exact  conclusion  which  I  most  earnestly  approve  of,  that  we 
are  to  be  a  Christian  University,  but  not  a  Romanist  one,  nor 
a  Protestant,  neither  exclusively  Church  of  England,  nor  ex- 
clusively Dissenting.  "  Religion,"  in  the  king's  mouth,  can 
mean  only  Christianity ;  in  fact,  no  Christian  can  use  it  in 
any  other  sense  without  manifest  inconsistency.  —  Again,  must 
it  not  follow  that  if  we  enter  at  all  upon  moral  science, 
whether  it  be  Moral  Philosophy  or  History,  we  must  be  sup- 
posed to  have  some  definite  notions  of  moral  truth  ?  Now 
those  notions  are  not,  I  suppose,  to  be  the  notions  of  each 
individual  Examiner;  we  must  refer  to  some  standard.  I 
suppose  that  a  man  could  hardly  get  a  degree  in  physical 
science  if  he  made  Aristotle's  Physics  his  standard  of  truth 
in  those  matters.  Now  there  are  many  views  of  moral  truth, 
quite  as  false  as  those  of  Aristotle  on  physical  science ;  but 
what  are  we  to  take  for  our  standard  of  truth  ?  We  must,  it 
seems  to  me,  have  some  standard,  in  whatever  we  profess  to 
examine,  and  what  can  that  standard  be  to  any  Christian,  ex- 
cept what  he  believes  to  be  God's  revealed  will  ?  It  seems 
to  me  that  we  cannot  recognize  any  other  standard  of  moral 
truth  without  directly  renouncing  Christ  as  our  Master. — 
Further,  Mr.  Lieber,  who  wrote  a  little  book  of  his  Remi- 
niscences of  Niebuhr,  who  is  now  engaged  in  one  of  the 
American  colleges  in  Carolina,  and  has  published  some  ex- 
ceedingly good  papers  on  the  system  there  pursued,  lays  it 
down  as  a  matter  of  common  sense,  that,  —  without  entering 
into  the  religious  question,  —  a  knowledge  of  the  Christian 
Scriptures  must  form  a  part  of  the  merely  intellectual  educa- 
tion of  ah1  persons  in  Christian  countries.  He  says,  I  think 
most  truly,  that  Christianity  has  so  colored  all  our  institutions, 
and  all  our  literature,  and  has  in  so  many  points  modified  or 
even  dictated  our  laws,  that  no  one  can  be  considered  as  an 
educated  man  who  is  not  acquainted  with  its  authoritative 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  87 

documents.  He  considers  that  a  liberal  education  without  the 
Scriptures,  must  be,  in  any  Christian  country,  a  contradiction 
in  terms. 

My  conclusion  is,  that  we  are  bound  in  some  way  or  other 
to  recognize  this  truth.  We  may,  indeed,  give  Degrees  in 
Law  and  in  Medicine,  without  acknowledging  it ;  so  we  may 
also  in  physical  science ;  so  we  may  also  in  pure  science  and 
philology.  None  of  these  things,  nor  all  of  them  together, 
constitute  education.  But  if  we  profess  to  give  Degrees  in 
Arts,  we  are  understood,  I  think,  as  giving  our  testimony  that 
a  man  has  received  a  liberal  education.  And  the  same  result 
follows  from  our  examining  on  any  moral  subject,  such  as 
History  or  Moral  Philosophy ;  because  it  is  precisely  moral 
knowledge,  and  moral  knowledge  only,  which  properly  consti- 
tutes education. 

The  University  of  Bonn,  —  the  only  one  of  the  Prussian 
universities  with  the  system  of  which  I  happen  to  be  ac- 
quainted, —  is  open,  as  you  know,  to  Catholics  and  Protestants 
equally.  But  both  have  their  Professors  and  their  regular 
courses  of  religious  instruction.  Now  as  we  do  not  teach  at 
present,  but  only  examine,  and  as  we  confer  no  degrees  in 
Theology,  our  difficulty  will  be  of  a  far  simpler  kind.  It  may 
be  met,  I  think,  perfectly  easily  in  two  or  three  different  man- 
ners. I  suppose  that,  for  any  of  the  reasons  stated  above, 
our  Bachelor  of  Arts'  Degree  must  imply  a  knowledge  of  the 
Christian  Scriptures.  But  then,  as  we  are  not  to  be  sectarian, 
neither  you  and  I  on  the  one  hand,  nor  any  of  our  Dissenting 
colleagues  on  the  other,  have  any  right  to  put  their  own  con- 
struction on  this  term,  "  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures."  I 
think  that  an  Unitarian  knows  them  very  ill,  and  he  would 
think  the  same  of  us.  But  we  agree  in  attaching  an  equal 
value  to  a  "  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,"  each  of  us  inter- 
preting the  phrase  in  his  own  way. 

I  would  propose,  then,  two  or  three  modes  of  ascertaining 
every  candidate's  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures,  in  his  own 
meaning  of  the  term.  First,  in  imitation  of  the  University  of 
Bonn,  there  might  be  members  of  the  Senate  of  different 
denominations  of  Christians  to  examine  the  members  of  their 
own  communions.  Practically  this  would  involve  no  great 
multitude ;  I  doubt  if  it  would  require  more  than  three  di~ 
visions,  our  own  Church,  Roman  Catholics,  and  Unitarians. 
I  doubt  if  the  orthodox  Dissenters,  as  they  are  called,  would 
have  any  objection  to  be  examined  by  you  or  me.  in  such  books 


88  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

of  the  New  Testament  as  they  themselves  chose  to  bring  up, 
when  they  were  required  to  subscribe  to  no  Articles  or  Lit- 
urgy, and  were  examined  as  persons  whose  opinions  on  their 
own  peculiar  points  of  difference  were  not  tolerated  merely, 
but  solemnly  recognized ;  so  that  there  would  be  neither  any 
suspicion  of  compromise  on  their  part,  nor  of  attempts  at 
proselytism  on  ours. 

Secondly,  we  might  even  do  less  than  this,  and  merely  re- 
quire from  every  candidate  for  a  Degree  in  Arts  a  certificate 
signed  by  two  ministers  of  his  own  persuasion,  that  he  was 
competently  instructed  in  Christian  knowledge  as  understood 
by  the  members  of  their  communion.  This  is  no  more  than 
every  young  person  in  our  own  Church  now  gets,  previously 
to  his  Confirmation.  I  think  this  would  be  a  very  inferior 
plan  to  the  former,  inasmuch  as  the  certificates  might  in  some 
cases  be  worth  very  little ;  but  still  it  completely  saves  the 
principle  recognized  in  our  Charter,  and  indispensable,  I  think, 
to  every  plan  of  education,  or  for  the  ascertaining  of  the  suf- 
ficiency of  any  one's  education  in  a  Christian  country; — that 
Christian  knowledge  is  a  necessary  part  of  the  formation  and 
cultivation  of  the  mind  of  every  one. 

Thirdly,  we  might,  I  am  sure,  do  what  were  best  of  all  and 
which  might  produce  benefits  in  the  course  of  time,  more  than 
could  be  told.  All  Protestants  acknowledge  the  Scriptures 
as  their  common  authority,  and  all  desire  their  children  to 
study  them.  Let  every  candidate  for  a  Degree  bring  up  at 
his  own  choice  some  one  Gospel,  and  some  one  Epistle  in  the 
Greek  Testament.  Let  him  declare,  on  coming  before  us,  to 
what  communion  he  belongs.  We  know  what  are  the  peculiar 
views  entertained  by  him  as  such,  and  we  would  respect  them 
most  religiously.  But  on  all  common  ground  we  might  ex- 
amine him  thoroughly,  and  how  infinite  would  be  the  good  of 
thus  proving,  by  actual  experience,  how  much  more  our  com- 
mon ground  is  than  our  peculiar  ground.  I  am  perfectly  ready 
to  examine  to-morrow  in  any  Unitarian  school  in  England,  in 
presence  of  parents  and  masters.  I  will  not  put  a  question 
that  should  offend,  and  yet  I  would  give  such  an  examination 
as  should  bring  out;  or  prove  the  absence  of  what  you  and  I 
should  agree  in  considering  to  be  Christian  knowledge  of  the 
highest  value.  I  speak  as  one  who  has  been  used  to  examine 
young  men  in  the  Scriptures  for  twenty  years  nearly,  and  I 
pledge  myself  to  the  perfect  easiness  of  doing  this.  Our  ex- 
aminations, in  fact,  will  carry  their  own  security  with  them,  i) 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  89 

our  characters  would  not ;  they  will  be  public,  and  we  should 
not  and  could  not  venture  to  proselytize,  even  if  we  wished  it. 
But  the  very  circumstance  of  our  having  joined  the  London 
University  at  the  risk  of  much  odium  from  a  large  part  of  our 
profession,  would  be  a  warrant  for  our  entering  into  the  spirit 
of  the  Charter  with  perfect  sincerity.  I  have  no  sufficient 
apology  to  offer  for  this  long  intrusion  upon  your  patience,  but 
my  overwhelming  sense  of  the  importance  of  the  subject.  It 
depends  wholly,  as  I  think,  on  our  decision  on  this  point, 
whether  our  success  will  be  a  blessing  or  a  curse  to  the  coun- 
try. A  Christian,  and  yet  not  sectarian  University,  would  be 
a  blessing  of  no  common  magnitude.  An  University  that 
conceived  of  education  as  not  involving  in  it  the  principles  of 
moral  truth,  would  be  an  evil,  I  think,  no  less  enormous. 

CLIX.       TO    THE    REV.    H.    HILL. 

(In  answer  to  questions  about  Thucydides.) 

Rugby,  May  25,  1837. 

My  experience  about  Thucydides  has  told  me  that 

the  knowledge  required  to  illustrate  him  may  be  taken  at 
anything  you  please,  from  Mitford  up  to  omne  scibile.  I 
suppose  that  the  most  direct  illustrations  are  to  be  found  in 
Aristophanes,  the  Acharnians,  the  Peace,  the  Birds,  and  the 
Clouds  ;  as  also  in  the  speech  of  Andocides  de  Mysteriis.  For 
the  Greek,  Bekker's  text,  in  his  smaller  edition  of  1832,  and 
a  good  Index  Verborum  —  though  bad  is  the  best  —  are,  I 
think,  the  staple.  You  may  add,  instead  of  a  Lexicon,  Reiske's 
Index  Verborum  to  Demosthenes,  and  Mitchell's  to  Plato  and 
Isocrates,  with  Schweighauser's  Lexicon  Herodoteum.  Butt- 
man's  larger  Greek  Grammar  is  the  best  thing  for  the  forms 
of  the  Verbs ;  as  for  Syntax,  Thucydides,  in  many  places,  is 
his  own  law. 

We  talk  about  going  to  Rome,  which  will  be  a  virtuous 
effort,  if  I  do  go,  for  my  heart  is  at  Fox  How.  Yet,  I  should 
love  to  talk  once  again  with  Bunsen  on  the  Capitol,  and  to 
expatiate  with  him  on  the  green  upland  plain  of  Algidus. 

I  congratulate  you  —  and  I  do  not  mean  it  as  a  mere  fa§on 
de  parler  —  on  your  Ordination. 


90  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

CLX.      *TO    C.   J.   VAUGHAN,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  September  13,  1837. 

The  first  sheet  of  the  History  is  actually  printed, 

and  I  hope  it  will  be  out  before  the  winter.  But  I  am  sure 
that  it  will  disappoint  no  one  so  much  as  it  will  myself;  for  I 
see  a  standard  of  excellence  before  me  in  my  mind,  which  I 
cannot  realize ;  and  I  mourn  over  the  deficient  knowledge  of 
my  book,  seeing  how  much  requires  to  be  known  in  order  to 
write  History  well,  and  how  soon  in  so  many  places  the  soil  of 
my  own  knowledge  is  bored  through,  and  there  is  the  barren 
rock  or  gravel  which  yields  nothing. 

I  could  write  on  much,  but  my  tune  presses.  I  am  anxious 
to  know  your  final  decision  as  to  profession  ;  but  I  do  not  like 
to  attempt  to  influence  you.  Whatever  be  your  choice,  it 
does  not  much  matter,  if  you  follow  steadily  our  great  common 
profession,  Christ's  service.  Alas !  when  will  the  Church 
ever  exist  in  more  than  in  name,  so  that  this  profession  might 
have  that  zeal  infused  into  it  which  is  communicated  by  an 
"  Esprit  de  Corps ; "  and,  if  the  "  Body"  were  the  real  Church, 
instead  of  our  abominable  sects,  with  their  half  priestcraft, 
half  profaneness,  its  "  Spirit "  would  be  one  that  we  might 
desire  to  receive  into  all  our  hearts  and  all  our  minds. 

CLXI.       TO    THE    REV.   J.    HEARN. 

Rugby,  September  25, 1837. 

I  have  to  thank  you  for  two  very  kind  letters,  as 

also  for  a  volume  of  C 's  Sermons Do  you  know 

that  C was  an  old  Oxford  pupil  of  mine  in  1815?  and 

a  man  for  whom  I  have  a  great  regard,  though  I  am  afraid 
he  thinks  me  a  heretic,  and  though  he  has  joined  that  party 
which,  as  a  party,  I  think  certainly  to  be  a  very  bad  one. 

But,  if  you  ever  see  C ,  I  should  be  much  obliged  to  you 

if  you  would  give  him  my  kind  remembrances.  It  grieves 
me  to  be  so  parted  as  I  am  from  so  many  men  with  whom  I 
was  once  intimate.  I  feel  and  speak  very  strongly  against 
their  party,  but  I  always  consider  the  party  as  a  mere  ab- 
straction of  its  peculiar  character  as  a  party,  and  as  such  I 
think  it  detestable  ;  but  take  any  individual  member  of  it, 
and  his  character  is  made  up  of  many  other  elements  than 
the  mere  peculiarities  of  his  party.  He  may  be  kind-hearted, 
sensible  on  many  subjects,  sincere,  and  a  good  Christian,  and 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  91 

therefore  I  may  love  and  respect  him,  though  his  party  as 
such,  —  that  is,  the  peculiar  views  which  constitute  the  bond 
of  union  amongst  its  members,  —  I  think  to  be  most  utterly 
at  variance  with  Christianity.  But  I  dare  say  many  people, 
hearing  and  reading  my  strong  condemnations  of  Tories  and 
Newmanites,  think  that  I  feel  very  bitterly  against  all  who 
belong  to  those  parties ;  whereas,  unless  they  are  merely 
Tories  and  Newmanites,  I  feel  no  dislike  to  them,  and  in 
many  instances  love  and  value  them  exceedingly.  Hampden's 
business  seemed  to  me  different,  as  there  was  in  that  some- 
thing more  than  theoretical  opinions  ;  there  was  downright 
evil  acting,  and  the  more  I  consider  it,  the  more  does  my 
sense  of  its  evil  rise.  Certainly  my  opinion  of  the  principal 
actors  in  that  affair  has  been  altered  by  it  towards  them  per- 
sonally ;  I  do  not  say  that  it  should  make  me  forget  all  their 
good  qualities,  but  I  consider  it  as  a  very  serious  blot  in  their 

moral  character But  I  did  not  mean  to  fill  my  letter 

with   this,  only  the   thought  of  C made  me  remember 

how  much  I  was  alienated  from  many  old  friends,  and  then  I 
wished  to  explain  how  I  really  did  feel  about  them,  for  I  be- 
lieve that  many  people  think  me  to  be  very  hard  and  very 
bitter ;  thinking  so,  I  hope  and  believe,  unjustly. 

CLXII.      *TO    DR.    GREENHILL. 

Rugby,  September  18, 1837. 

I  shall  be  anxious  to  hear  what  you  think  of  Ho- 
moeopathy, which  my  wife  has  tried  twice  with  wonderful 
success,  and  I  once  with  quite  success  enough  to  encourage 
me  to  try  it  again.  Also  I  shall  like  to"  hear  anything  fresh 
about  Animal  Magnetism,  which  has  always  excited  my  curi- 
osity. But  more  than  all  I  would  fain  learn  something  of 
malaria,  and  about  the  causes  of  pestilential  disease,  partic- 
ularly of  Cholera.  It  is  remarkable,  that  while  all  ordinary 
disease  seems  to  yield  more  and  more  to  our  increased  knowl- 
edge, pestilences  seem  still  to  be  reserved  by  God  for  his  own 
purposes,  and  to  baffle  as  completely  our  knowledge  of  their 
causes,  and  our  power  to  meet  them,  as  in  the  earliest  ages  of 
the  world.  Indeed,  the  Cholera  kills  more  quickly  than  any 
of  the  recorded  plagues  of  antiquity ;  and  yet  a  poison  so 
malignant  can  be  introduced  into  the  air,  and  neither  its  causes 
nor  its  existence  understood ;  we  see  only  its  effects.  Influ- 
enza and  Cholera,  I  observe,  just  attack  the  opposite  parts  of 


92  LIFE  OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

the  system ;  the  former  fastening  especially  on  the  chest  and 
sensorium,  which  are  perfectly  unaffected,  I  believe,  in  Chol- 
era. As  to  connecting  the  causes  of  either  with  any  of  the 
obvious  phenomena  of  weather  or  locality,  it  seems  to  me  a 
pure  folly  to  attempt  it;  as  great  as  the  folly  of  ascribing 
malaria  to  the  miasmata  of  aquatic  plants.  I  shall  be  very 
much  interested  in  hearing  your  reports  of  the  latest  discov- 
eries in  these  branches  of  science ;  Medicine,  like  Law,  having 
always  attracted  me  as  much  in  its  study  as  it  has  repelled  me 
in  practice  ;  not  that  I  feel  alike  towards  the  practice  of  both ; 
on  the  contrary,  I  honor  the  one,  as  much  as  I  abhor  the 
other;  the  physician  meddles  with  physical  evil  in  order  to 
relieve  and  abate  it;  the  lawyer  meddles  with  moral  evil 

.rather  to  aggravate  it  than  to  mend Yet  the  study 

of  Law  is,  I  think,  glorious,  transcending  that  of  any  earthly 
thing. 

CLXIII.      TO    W.   EMPSON,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  November  18, 1837. 

I  trust  that  I  need  not  assure  you  that  I  feel  as  deeply  in- 
terested as  any  man  can  do  in  the  welfare  of  our  University, 
and  most  deeply  should  I  grieve  if  any  act  of  mine  were  to 
impair  it.  But  then  I  am  interested  in  the  University,  so  far 
as  it  may  be  a  means  towards  effecting  certain  great  ends ; 
if  it  does  not  promote  these,  it  is  valueless :  if  it  obstruct 
them,  it  is  actually  pernicious.  So  far  I  know  we  are  agreed ; 
but  then  to  my  mind  the  whole  good  that  the  University  can 
do  towards  the  cause  of  general  education  depends  on  its 
holding  manifestly  a  Christian  character ;  if  it  does  not  hold 
this,  it  seems  to  me  to  be  at  once  so  mischievous,  from  giving 
its  sanction  to  a  most  mischievous  principle,  that  its  evil  will 
far  outweigh  its  good.  Now  the  education  system  in  Ireland, 
which  has  yet  been  violently  condemned  by  many  good  men, 
h  Christian,  though  it  is  not  Protestant  or  Catholic ;  their 
Scripture  lessons  give  it  the  Christian  character  clearly  and 
decisively.  Now,  are  we  really  for  the  sake  of  a  few  Jews, 
who  may  like  to  have  a  Degree  in  Arts,  —  or  for  the  sake  of 
one  or  two  Mahometans,  who  may  possibly  have  the  same 
wish,  or  for  the  sake  of  English  unbelievers,  who  dare  not 
openly  avow  themselves  —  are  we  to  destroy  our  only  chance 
of  our  being  even  either  useful  or  respected  as  an  Institution 
of  national  education  ?  There  is  no  difficulty  with  Dissenters 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  93 

of  am-  denomination  ;  what  we  have  proposed  has  been  so 
carefully  considered,  that  it  is  impossible  to  pretend  that  it 
bears  a  sectarian  character  ;  it  is  objected  to  merely  as  being 
Christian,  as  excluding  Jews,  Turks,  and  misbelievers. 

Now  —  considering  the  small  number  of  the  two  first  of 
these  divisions,  and  thjat  the  last  have  as  yet  no  ostensible  and 
recognized  existence,  and  that  our  Charter  declares  in  the 
very  opening  that  the  end  of  our  institution  is  the  promotion 
of  religion  and  morality,  —  I  hold  myself  abundantly  justified 
in  interpreting  the  subsequent  expressions  as  relating  only 
to  all  denominations  of  Her  Majesty's  Christian  subjects,  and 
in  that  sense  I  cordially  accede  to  them.  Beyond  that  I  can- 
not go,  as  I  have  not  the  smallest  doubt  that  it  is  better  to 
go  on  with  our  present  system,  with  ah1  its  narrowness  and 
deficiencies,  than  to  begin  a  pretended  system  of  national 
education  on  any  other  than  a  Christian  basis.  As  to  myself, 
therefore,  my  course  is  perfectly  clear.  If  our  report  be 
rejected  on  Wednesday^  —  I  mean  as  to  its  Christian  clauses, 
—  I  certainly  will  not  allow  my  name  to  be  affixed  to  it  with- 
out them  ;  nor  can  I  assist  any  farther  in  preparing  a  scheme 
of  Examination  which  I  should  regard  as  a  mere  evil.  It 
would  be  the  first  time  that  education  in  England  was  avow- 
edly unchristianized  for  the  sake  of  accommodating  Jews  or 
unbelievers ;  and  as,  on  the  one  hand,  I  do  not  believe  that 
either  of  these  are  so  numerous  as  to  be  entitled  to  considera- 
tion even  on  points  far  less  vital,  so,  if  they  were  ever  so 
numerous,  it  might  be  a  very  good  reason  why  the  national 
property  should  be  given  to  their  establishments  and  taken 
from  ours,  but  nothing  could  ever  justify  a  compromise  be- 
tween us  and  them  in  such  a  matter  as  education 

I  am  quite  sure  that  no  earnest  Christian  would  wish  the 
Gospels  and  Acts,  and  the  Scripture  history  to  be  excluded, 
because  they  were  in  some  instances  understood  differently. 
It  was  a  sure  mark  of  the  false  mother  when  she  said,  "  Let 
the  child  be  neither  mine  nor  thine,  but  divide  it ; "  the  real 
mother  valued  the  child  very  differently.  I  can  see,  there- 
fore, in  this  question,  no  persons  opposed  to  us  whom  I  should 
wish  to  conciliate,  —  no  benefits  in  the  University,  if  it  bears 
no  mark  of  Christianity  which  I  should  think  worth  preserv- 
ing. It  will  grieve  me  very  muck  if  vte  in  the  last  result 
take  a  different  view  of  this  matter. 


94  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

CLXIV.   TO  THE  REV.  TREVENEN  PENROSE, 
(His  brother-in-law.) 

Rugby,  November  20, 1837. 

I  have  long  since  purposed  to  write  to  you,  and  at  last  I 
j>pe  I  shall  be  able  to  do  it.  I  always  read  your  additions  to 
me  Journal  with  great  interest,  and  they  never  fail  to  awaken 
in  me  many  thoughts  of  various  kinds,  but  principally,  I 
think,  a  strong  sense  of  the  blessing  which  seems  to  follow 
your  father's  house,  and  of  the  true  peace,  which,  for  seven- 
teen years,  I  can  testify,  and  I  believe  for  many  more,  ha,s 
continually  abided  with  it.  And  this  peace  I  am  inclined 
to  value  above  every  other  blessing  in  the  world ;  for  it  is 
very  far  from  the  "  Otium  "  of  the  Epicurean,  and  might  in- 
deed be  enjoyed  anywhere  ;  but  in  your  case  outward  circum- 
stances seem  happily  to  have  combined  with  inward,  and 
other  people  have  rarely,  I  believe,  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
one  or  of  the  other.  I  am  not  disposed  to  quarrel  with  my 
own  lot  ;  nevertheless,  it  is  not  altogether  peaceful,  and 
this  great  concern  oppresses  me  more  as  I  grow  older, 
and  as  I  feel  more  deeply  the  evils  I  am  powerless  to  quell. 
You  see  much  hardness,  perhaps,  and  much  ignorance,  but 
then  you  see  also  much  softness,  if  nowhere  else,  yet  amongst 
the  sick  ;  and  you  see  much  affection  and  self-denial  amongst 
the  poor,  which  are  things  to  refresh  the  heart ;  but  I  have 
always  to  deal  with  health  and  youth,  and  lively  spirits,  which 
are  rarely  soft  or  self-denying.  And  where  there  is  little 
intellectual  power,  as  generally  there  is  very  little,  it  is  very 
hard  to  find  any  points  of  sympathy.  And  the  effect  of  this 
prevalent  mediocrity  of  character  is  very  grievous.  Good 
does  not  grow,  and  the  fallow  ground  lies  ready  for  all  eviL 

CLXV.      TO    W;    EMPSON,   ESQ. 

Rngby,  November  28,  183". 

The  whole   question  turns  upon  this ;  —  whether 

the  country  understood,  and  was  meant  to  understand,  that 
the  University  of  London  was  to  be  open  to  all  Christians 
without  distinction,  or  to  all  men  without  distinction.  The 
question  Avhich  had  been  discussed  with  regard  to  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  was  the  admissibility  of  Dissenters  ;  which  in 
common  speech  does  not  mean,  I  think,  Dissenters  from 
Christianity  :  no  one  argued,  so  far  as  I  know,  for  the  admis- 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  95 

eion  of  avowed  unbelievers.  I  thought  that  the  University 
of  London  was  intended  to  solve  this  question,  and  I  there- 
fore readily  joined  it.  I  thought  that  whatever  difficulties 
were  supposed  to  exist  with  respect  to  the  introduction  of  the 
Greek  Testament,  relative  to  Dissenters  only,  and,  as  such, 
I  respected  them ;  and  our  plan,  therefore,  waiving  the  Epis- 
tles, requires  only  some  one  Gospel  and  the  Acts ;  that  is, 
any  one  who  is  afraid  of  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  may  take  up 
St.  Luke  or  St.  Mark ;  and  St.  Luke  and  the  Acts  have  been 
translated  by  the  Irish  Board  of  Education,  and  are  used  in 
the  Irish  schools  with  the  full  consent  of  Catholics  and  Prot- 
estants ;  nor  do  I  imagine  that  any  Protestant  Dissenters 
could  consistently  object  to  either.  I  do  not  see  the  force  of 
the  argument  about  the  College  in  Gower  Street ;  because 
we  admit  their  students  to  be  examined  for  degrees,  we  do 
not  sanction  their  system  any  more  than  we  sanction  the  very 
opposite  system  of  King's  College.  Nor  does  it  follow,  so  far 
as  I  see,  that  University  College  must  have  a  Professor  of 
Theology,  because  we  expect  its  members  to  have  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  elements  of  Christianity.  University  College 
hopes  —  or  has  not  yet  ventured  to  say  it  does  not  hope  —  that 
its  students  are  provided  with  this  knowledge  before  they 
join  it.  But  I  should  protest,  in  the  strongest  terms,  against 
its  being  supposed  that  our  University  is  to  be  merely  an 
University  College  with  a  Charter :  if  so,  undoubtedly  I  would 
not  belong  to  it  for  an  hour.  You  say  that  we  are  bringing 
in  the  Greek  Testament  by  a  side-wind,  in  putting  it  in 
amongst  the  Classical  writers ;  but  if  by  Classics  we  mean 
anything  more  than  Greek  and  Latin  Grammar,  they  are  just 
the  one  part  of  our  Examination  which  embraces  points  of 
general  education  :  for  instance,  we  have  put  in  some  recom- 
mendations about  Modern  History,  which,  if  Classics  be  taken 
to  the  letter,  are  just  as  much  of  a  departure  from  our  province, 
as  what  we  have  done  about  the  Greek  Testament.  On  the 
whole,  I  am  quite  clear  as  to  my  original  position,  namely, 
that  if  you  once  get  off  from  the  purely  natural  ground  of 
physical  science,  Philology,  and  pure  Logic,  — -  the  moment, 
in  short,  on  which  you  enter  upon  any  moral  subjects, —  wheth- 
er Moral  Philosophy  or  History  —  you  must  either  be  Chris- 
tian or  Antichristian,  for  you  touch  upon  the  ground  of  Chris- 
tianity, and  you  must  either  take  it  as  your  standard  of  moral 
judgment,  —  or  you  must  renounce  it,  and  either  follow  another 
standard,  or  have  no  standard  at  all.  In  other  words,  again, 


96  LIFE  OF  DR    ARNOLD. 

the  moment  you  touch  on  what  alone  is  education, — the  form- 
ing of  the  moral  principles  and  habits  of  man,  —  neutrality  is 
impossible;  it  would  be  very  possible,  if  Christianity  con- 
sisted really  in  a  set  of  theoretical  truths,  as  many  seem  to 
fancy ;  but  it  is  not  possible,  inasmuch  as  it  claims  to  be  the 
paramount  arbiter  of  all  our  moral  judgments  ;  and  he  who 
judges  of  good  and  evil,  right  and  wrong,  without  reference 
to  its  authority,  virtually  denies  it.  The  Gower-Street  Col- 
lege I  therefore  hold  to  be  Antichristian,  inasmuch  as  it  med- 
dles with  moral  subjects,  —  having  lectures  in  History,  —  and 
yet  does  not  require  its  Professors  to  be  Christians.  And  so 
long  as  the  Scriptures  were  held  to  contain  divine  truth  on 
physical  science,  it  was  then  impossible  to  give  even  physical 
instruction  neutrally  ;  —  you  must  either  teach  it  according  to 
God's  principles,  (it  being  assumed  that  God's  word  had 
pronounced  concerning  it,)  or  in  defiance  of  them.  I  hope 
we  may  meet  on  Saturday :  I  know  that  you  are  perfectly 

sincere,  and  that  L is  so  :  nevertheless,  I  am  persuaded 

that  your  argument  goes  on  an  over-estimate  of  the  theologi- 
cal and  abstract  character  of  Christianity,  and  an  under-esti- 

mate  of  it  as  a  moral  law ;  else  how  can  L talk  of  a 

clergyman  being  in  a  false  position  hi  belonging  to  the  Uni- 
versity, if  he  does  not  think  that  the  position  is  equally  false 
for  every  Christian  ?  If»it  be  false  for  me,  it  is  false  for  you, 
except  on  the  priestcraft  notion,  which  is  as  unchristian,  hi 
my  opinion,  as  the  system  in  Gower  Street.  Indeed,  the  two 
help  one  another  well. 

CLXVI.      TO  J.   C.  PLATT,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  December  6, 1887. 

I  am  afraid  that  I  did  no  service  to  the  Hertford 

Reformer ;  for  what  I  sent  them  was,  I  knew,  too  general 
and  discursive  for  a  newspaper  ;  but  they  would  insert  all  my 
articles,  and  I  felt  that  they  would  not  thauk  me  for  any 
more  such,  and  I  thought  that  I  could  not  manage  to  write 
what  really  would  be  to  their  purpose.  You  must  not  misun- 
derstand me,  as  if  I  thought  that  my  writings  were  too  good 
for  a  newspaper ;  it  is  very  much  the  contrary,  for  I  think 
that  a  newspaper  requires  a  more  condensed  and  practical 
etyle  than  I  am  equal  to,  —  such,  perhaps,  as  only  habit  and 
mixing  more  in  the  actual  shock  of  opinions  can  give  a  man 
My  writing  partakes  of  the  character  of  my  way  of  life,  which 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  97 

is  very  much  retired  from  the  highway  of  politics,  and  of  all 
great  discussions,  though  it  is  engaged  enough  with  a  busy 

little  world  of  its  own 

I  was  much  gratified  in  the  summer  by  going  over  to  France 
for  about  ten  days,  at  the  end  of  the  holidays,  with  my  wife 
and  three  eldest  children.  Seven  years  had  elapsed  since  I 
had  been  in  France  last,  so  that  many  things  had  quite  an 
appearance  of  novelty,  and  I  fancied  that  I  could  trace  the 
steady  growth  of  everything  from  the  continuance  of  peace, 
and  the  absence  of  most  of  those  evils  which  in  tunes  past  so 
interfered  with  national  prosperity.  We  went  to  Rouen, 
Evreux,  and  Chartres,  and  then  came  back  through  Versailles 
and  Paris.  I  admired  Paris  as  I  always  had  done,  and  we 
had  very  fine  weather ;  but  I  had  no  time  to  call  on  anybody, 
even  if  all  the  world  had  not  been  in  the  country.  This  little 
tour  I  owed  to  the  election,  which  brought  me  up  from  West- 
moreland to  Warwickshire  to  vote,  and  it  was  so  near  the  end 
of  the  holidays,  that  it  did  not  seem  worth  while  to  go  back 
again.  I  watched  the  elections  with  great  interest,  but  not 
with  much  surprise.  In  1831,  when  I  wrote  for  the  Sheffield 
Courant,  I  shared  the  common  opinion  as  to  the  danger  which 
threatened  all  our  institutions  from  the  force  of  an  ultra- 
popular  party.  But  the  last  six  years  have  taught  me, —  what 
the  Roman  History  ought  indeed  to  have  shown  me  before,  — 
that  when  an  aristocracy  is  not  thoroughly  corrupted,  its 
strength  is  incalculable  ;  and  it  acts  through  the  relations  of 
private  life,  which  are  permanent,  whereas  the  political  ex- 
citement, which  opposes  it,  must  always  be  short-lived.  In 
fact,  the  great  amount  of  liberty  and  good  government  enjoyed 
in  England  is  the  security  of  the  aristocracy :  there  are  no 
such  pressing  and  flagrant  evils  existing,  as  to  force  men's 
attention  from  their  own  domestic  concerns,  and  make  them 
cast  off  their  natural  ties  of  respect  or  of  fear  for  their  richer 
or  nobler  neighbors  ;  and  as  for  Ireland,  the  English  care 
not  for  it  one  groat. 

CLXVII.      TO   MR.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  December  8,  1837. 

I  have  asked  Hull  to  send  you  the  two  first  printed  sheets 
of  my  History.  You  had  promised  to  look  at  the  manuscript, 
and,  if  you  agree  with  me,  you  will  find  it  pleasanter  to  read 
print  than  writing.  Specially  will  you  notice  any  expressions 

VOL.    II.  9  G 


98  LIFE   DF  r)R.   ARNOLD. 

in  the  Legends  which  may  seem  to  you  to  approach  too  near 
to  the  language  of  our  translation  of  the  Bible.  I  have  tried 
to  avoid  this,  but  in  trying  to  write  in  an  antiquated  and  sim- 
ple language,  that  model  with  which  we  are  most  familiar 
will  sometimes  be  followed  too  closely ;  and  no  one  can  dep- 
recate more  than  I  do  anything  like  a  trivial  use  of  that 
language  which  should  be  confined  to  one  subject  only.  I 
hope  and  believe  that  I  have  kept  clear  of  this ;  still,  I  would 
rather  have  your  judgment  on  it ;  I  think  you  will  at  the 
same  time  agree  with  me  that  the  Legends  ought  to  be  told 
as  Legends,  and  not  in  the  style  of  real  history.  We  had  a 
four  hours'  debate  at  the  University,  and  a  division  in  our 
favor  with  a  majority  of  one.  But  the  adversary  will  oppose 
us  still,  step  by  step ;  and  they  are  going  to  ask  the  Attorney 
General's  opinion,  whether  we  can  examine  in  the  Greek 
Testament  without  a  breach  of  our  Charter ! ! !  A  strange 
Charter,  surely,  for  the  Defender  of  the  Faith  to  grant,  if  it 
forbids  the  use  of  the  Christian  Scriptures. 

CLXVIII.      f  TO    REV.    T.   J.    ORMEROD. 

(After  speaking  of  the  affair  of  the  Archbishop  of  Cologne.) 

Fox  How,  December  18, 1887. 

Certainly  there  is  no  battle  in  which  I  so  entirely 

sympathize  as  in  this  of  the  Christian  Church  against  the 
Priestcraft- Antichrist.  And  yet  this  is  not  quite  true,  for  I 
sympathize  as  cordially  in  its  battle  against  the  other  Anti- 
christ ;  the  Antichrist  of  Utilitarian  unbelief,  against  which 

I  am  fighting  at  the  London  University.     If persuades 

the  Government  to  sanction  his  views,  it  will  be  a  wrench  to 
me  to  separate  from  the  only  party  that  hitherto  I  have  been 
able  to  go  along  with ;  and  to  be  obliged  to  turn  an  absolute 
political  Ishmaelite,  condemning  all  parties,  knowing  full  well 
what  to  shun,  but  finding  nothing  to  approve  or  sympathize 
with.  But  so  I  suppose  it  ought  to  be  with  us,  till  Christ's 
kingdom  come,  and  both  the  Antichrists  be  put  down  before 
Him. 

CLXIX.      TO    MR.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Fox  How,  December  20,  1837. 

We  have  been  here  since  Saturday  afternoon,  and  I  think 
it  has  rained  almost  ever  since ;  at  this  moment  Wansfell  and 


LIFE  C^   DR.   ARNOLD.  99 

Kirkstone  and  Fairfield  are  dimly  looming  through  a  medium 
which  consists,  I  suppose,  as  much  of  water  as  of  air ;  the 
Rotha  is  racing  at  the  rate  of  eight  or  nine  miles  an  hour, 
and  the  meadows  are  becoming  rather  lake-like.  Notwith- 
standing, I  believe  that  every  one  of  us,  old  and  young,  would 
rather  be  here  than  anywhere  else  in  the  world. 

I  thank  you  very  heartily  for  your  letter,  and,  in  this  pre- 
cious leisure  time  of  the  holidays,  I  can  answer  it  at  once  and 
without  hurry.  Your  judgment  as  to  the  Legends  determines 
me  at  once  to  recast  that  whole  first  chapter.  I  wish,  however, 
if  it  is  not  giving  you  too  much  trouble,  that  you  would  get 
the  manuscript,  and  read  also  the  chapter  about  the  banish- 
ment of  the  Tarquins  and  the  battle  by  the  Lake  Regillus. 
I  think  that  you  would  not  find  it  open  to  the  same  objec- 
tions ;  at  least,  Wordsworth  read  it  through  with  a  reference 
merely  to  the  language,  and  he  approved  of  it ;  and  I  think 
that  it  is  easier  and  more  natural  than  the  first  chapter.  But 
I  have  not,  and  I  trust  I  shall  not,  shrink  from  any  labor  of 
alteration,  in  order  to  make  the  work  as  complete  as  I  can ; 
it  will,  after  all,  fall  infinitely  short  of  that  model  which  I 
fancy  keenly,  but  vainly  strive  to  carry  out  into  execution. 
With  regard  to  the  first  chapter,  you  have  convinced  me  that 
it  is  faulty,  because  it  is  not  what  I  meant  it  to  be.  But  as 
to  the  principle,  I  am  still  of  opinion  that  the  Legends 
cannot  be  omitted  without  great  injury,  and  that  they  must 
not  be  told  in  my  natural  style  of  narrative.  The  reason  of 
this  appears  to  me  to  be,  the  impossibility  of  any  man's  telling 
such  stories  in  a  civilized  age  in  his  own  proper  person,  with 
that  sincerity  of  belief,  nay  even  with  that  gravity,  which  is 
requisite  to  give  them  their  proper  charm.  If  I  thought  that 
they  contained  really  an  historical  skeleton,  disguised  under 
fabulous  additions,  it  would  of  course  be  easy  to  give  the  his- 
torical outline  as  history  in  my  own  natural  language,  and  to 
omit,  or  to  notice  with  a  grave  remark  as  to  their  fabulous- 
ness, the  peculiar  marvels  of  the  stories.  This  was  done  by 
Goldsmith,  Rollin,  &c.  But  I  wish  to  give,  not  the  supposed 
facts  of  the  stories,  but  the  stories  themselves,  in  their  oldest 
traceable  form ;  I  regard  them  as  poetry,  in  which  the  form 
is  quite  as  essential  as  the  substance  of  the  story.  It  is  a 
similar  question,  and  fraught  with  similar  difficulties  to  that 
which  regards  the  translation  of  Homer  and  Herodotus.  If 
I  were  to  translate  Herodotus,  it  were  absurd  to  do  it  in  my 
common  English,  because  he  and  I  do  not  belong  to  analogous  • 


100  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

periods  of  Greek  and  English  literature ;  I  should  try  to 
translate  him  in  the  style  of  the  old  translation  of  Comines 
rather  than  of  Froissart ;  hi  the  Engh'sh  of  that  period  of  our 
national  cultivation  which  corresponds  to  the  period  of  Greek 
cultivation  at  which  he  wrote.  I  might  and  probably  should 
do  this  ill :  still,  I  should  try  to  mend  the  execution  without 
altering  my  plan ;  and  so  I  should  do  with  these  Roman 
stories.  For  instance,  the  dramatic  form  appears  to  me  quite 
essential ;  I  mean  the  making  the  actors  express  their  thoughts 
in  the  first  person,  instead  of  saying  what  they  thought  or 
felt  as  narrative.  This,  no  doubt,  is  the  style  of  the  Bible : 
but  it  is  not  peculiar  to  it ;  you  have  it  in  Herodotus  just  tho 
same,  because  it  is  characteristic  of  a  particular  state  of  cul- 
tivation, which  all  people  pass  through  at  a  certain  stage  hi 
their  progress.  If  I  could  do  it  well,  I  would  give  all  the 
Legends  at  once  in  verse,  in  the  style  and  measure  of  Chap- 
man's Homer ;  and  that  would  be  the  best  and  liveliest  way 
of  giving  them,  and  liable  to  no  possible  charge  of  parodying 
the  Bible.  The  next  best  way  is  that  which  I  have  tried  and 
failed  in  executing ;  but  I  will  try  again  ;  and  if  it  is  not  too 
much  trouble,  I  will  ask  you  to  look  at  the  new  attempt.  I 
feel  sure  —  and  I  really  have  thought  a  great  deal  upon  this 
point  —  that  to  give  the  story  of  the  white  sow,  of  the  wolf 
suckling  the  twins,  of  Romulus  being  carried  up  to  heaven, 
&c.,  in  my  own  language,  would  be  either  merely  flat  and 
absurd,  or  else  would  contain  so  palpable  an  irony  as  to  de- 
stroy the  whole  effect  which  one  would  wish  to  create  by 
telling  the  stories  at  all. 

For  the  other  and  greater  matter  of  the  University,  I  think 
it  is  very  probable  that  I  shall  have  to  leave  it ;  but  I  cannot 
believe  that  it  is  otherwise  than  a  solemn  duty  to  stand  by  it 
as  long  as  I  can  hope  to  turn  it  to  good.  Undoubtedly  we 
must  not  do  evil  that  good  may  come  ;  but  we  may  and  must 
bear  much  that  is  painful,  and  associate  with  those  whom  we 
disapprove  of,  in  order  to  do  good.  What  is  the  evil  of  be- 
longing to  the  University  a  priori  ?  There  is  no  avowed  prin- 
ciple in  its  foundation  which  I  think  wrong ;  the  comprehen^ 
sion  of  all  Christians,  you  know,  I  think  most  right ;  if  more 
be  meant,  I  think  it  most  wrong  ;  but  this  is  the  very  point 
which  I  am  trying  to  bring  to  issue ;  and,  though  my  fears  of 
the  issue  outweigh  my  hopes,  yet  while  there  is  any  hope  ] 
ought  not  to  give  up  the  battle. 


LIFE   OF  DB.  ARNOLD.  101 


CLXX.      TO   EEV.   DR.   HAWKINS. 

Fox  How,  January  23, 1838. 

I  had  intended  to  answer  your  kind  letter  of  the  21st  of 
November  long  before  this  time  ;  I  reserved  it  for  the  leisure 
of  Fox  How,  and  I  have  found,  as  is  often  the  case,  that  the 
less  1  have  to  do,  the  less  I  do  of  anything.  Now  our  holi- 
days are  fast  wearing  away,  and  in  little  more  than  a  week 
we  shall  leave  this  most  delightful  home ;  a  home  indeed  so 
peaceful  and  so  delightful,  that  it  would  not  be  right  to  make 
it  one's  constant  portion ;  but  after  the  half-years  at  Rugby, 
which  now  begin  to  be  quite  as  much  as  I  can  well  bear,  the 
rest  seems  to  be  allowed ;  and  I  drink  it  in  with  intense 
enjoyment,  and  I  hope  with  something  of  the  thankfulness 
which  it  claims 

To  London  I  must  go,  on  account  of  our  meeting  of  the 
London  University  on  the  7th,  when  the  question  of  Scrip- 
tural Examination  will  again  be  discussed.  It  was  curious  to 
me,  knowing  my  character  at  Oxford,  to  hear  myself  charged, 
at  our  last  meeting  in  December,  with  wishing  to  engross  the 
University  of  London  for  the  Established  Church,  as  the 
other  Universities  were  engrossed  by  it  already.  The  oppo- 
sition is  very  fierce I  could  not  examine  a  Jew  in  a 

history  of  which  he  would  not  admit  a  single  important  fact, 
nor  could  I  bear  to  abstain  systematically  from  calling  our 
Lord  by  any  other  name  than  Jesus,  because  I  must  not 

shock  the  Jew  by  implying  that  He  was  the  Christ 

The  prevailing  evils  in  the  University  of  Oxford  are,  to  be 
sure,  rather  of  a  different  character  from  those  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  London But  you  have  done  much  good 

with  the  statutes,  and  I  delight  to  hear  about  the  prospect  of 
the  six  scholarships. 

I  have  been  engaged  in  tiresome  disputes  about  my  History 
with  the  booksellers,  and  they  are  only  just  settled.  The  first 
volume  will  now,  I  suppose,  go  to  press  speedily,  and  I  have 
begun  the  second.  It  is  delightful  work  when  I  can  get  on 
with  it  without  interruption,  as  is  the  case  here.  Besides  this, 
I  have  done  little  except  reading  Newman's  book  about  Ro- 
manism and  Protestantism,  and  Bishop  Sanderson's  work  on 
the  Origin  of  Government,  which  Pusey  refers  to  in  the 
Preface  to  his  Sermons.  The  latter  work  does  not  raise  my 
opinion  of  its  author ;  it  contains  divers  startling  assertions, 
admirably  suited  to  the  purposes  of  text  quoters,  which  ap- 
9* 


102  LIFE  OF  DB.   ARNOLD. 

pear  to  advocate  pure  despotism  ;  but  then  they  are  so  quali- 
fied, that  at  last  one  finds  nothing  surprising  in  them,  except 
the  foolishness  or  the  unfairness  of  putting  them  out  at  first 

in  so  paradoxical  a  form.* I  think,  by  what  I  hear, 

the  cold  in  Oxford  must  have  been  more  severe  than  with  us. 
I  have  not  seen  our  thermometer  lower  than  14,  at  which  it 
stood  at  9  A.  M.  last  Saturday,  in  a  northern  aspect.  But  we 
have  had  no  snow  in  the  valleys  till  Sunday,  and  the  water 

in  the  house  has  never  frozen The  hills  have  been 

very  hard  to  walk  on,  all  the  streams  being  hard  frozen,  and 
the  water  which  generally  is  steeping  all  the  surface  of  the 
slopes  being  now  sheets  of  ice.  But  the  waterfalls  and  the 
snowy  mountain  summits,  backed  by  the  clear  blue  sky,  have 
been  most  beautiful. 


CLXXI.      TO   THE    CHEVALIER   BUNSEN. 
(On  the  affair  of  the  Archbishop  of  Cologne.) 

Fox  How,  January  27, 1838. 

When  I  consider  the  question  I  am   more  and 

more  at  a  loss  to  guess  how  it  can  be  satisfactorily  solved. 
How  can  truth  and  error  be  brought  into  harmony  ?  This 
marriage  question  is  admirably  fitted  for  showing  the  ab- 
surdity of  the  favorite  distinction  between  spiritual  things  and 
secular.  Every  voluntary  moral  action  is  to  a  Christian  both 
the  one  and  the  other.  "  Spiritual "  and  "  ritual  "  differ  ut- 
terly. Mere  ritual  observances  may  be  separated  from  secular 
actions,  but  ritual  observances  are  not  a  Christian's  religion: 
A  Christian's  religion  is  coextensive  with  his  life,  and  how 
can  he  in  the  general  tenor  of  his  life  obey  two  masters,  the 
King  and  the  Pope ;  how  can  he  at  once  obey  the  rightful 
authorities  of  the  Christian  Church  and  the  usurped  authority 
of  Priestcraft?  I  lament  the  very  expressions  in  which  the 
actual  dispute  is  described.  It  is  represented  as  a  contest 
between,  the  Church  and  the  Government,  or  between  the 
Church  and  the  State ;  in  which  case  I  think  that  all  Chris- 
tians would  be  bound  to  obey  the  Church,  and,  if  the  State's 
commands  are  incompatible  with  such  obedience,  to  submit  to 
martyrdom.  But  hi  truth,  you  are  the  Church,  and  the  Arch- 

*  Of  Mr.  Newman's  book  he  says  in  another  letter,  "  Parts  of  it  I  think 
very  good,"  —  [the  allusion  here  was  especially  to  Lecture  xii.,  Scripture 
the  record  of  our  Lord's  teaching,]  —  "  parts  as  bad  as  bad  can  be." 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  103 

bishop  of  Cologne  represents  the  Church's  worst  enemy,  the 
spirit  of  priesthood.  It  is  Korah  the  Levite,  falsely  pretend- 
ing to  be  a  priest,  and  in  that  false  pretension  rebelling  against 
Moses.  But  this  mingled  usurpation  and  rebellion  —  this  root 
of  anarchy,  fraud,  and  idolatry  —  is  the  very  main  principle 
of  all  popery,  whether  Romish  or  Oxonian,  whether  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Cologne  or  of  Pusey  and  Newman.  How 
either  you  or  we  can  preserve  the  Church  from  it,  I  do  not 
see ;  but  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  do  I  "  wish  you  good 
luck  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,"  in  this  most  holy  cause. 

Connected  with  this  is  Rothe's  book,  which  I  have  read 
with  great  interest.  His  first  position  —  that  the  State,  and 
not  the  Church,  (in  the  common  and  corrupt  sense  of  the 
term,)  is  the  perfect  form  under  which  Christianity  is  to  be 
developed  —  entirely  agrees  with  my  notions.  But  his  sec- 
ond position  —  that  the  Church  in  the  corrupt  sense,  that  is, 
a  priestly  government,  transmitted  by  a  mystical  succession 
from  one  priest  to  another,  is  of  apostolical  origin  —  seems  to 
me  utterly  groundless.  It  may  be,  that  the  Apostles,  after 
the  destruction  of  Jerusalem,  if  any  of  them  survived  it, 
made  the  government  of  the  Church  more  monarchical,  and 
less  popular ;  and  that  they  were  very  anxious  to  commit  it 
to  persons  of  their  own  choice,  or  chosen  by  those  who  had 
been  so.  But  this  does  not  touch  the  point.  Different  states 
of  society  require  governments  more  or  less  despotic,  and  that 
the  Church  should  be  governed  according  to  the  principles  of 
Christianity  as  set  forth  by  the  Apostles,  is  most  certain.  The 
mischief  of  the  false  Church  notion  consists  in  its  substitu- 
tion of  the  idea  of  priesthood  for  that  of  government,  and  as 
a  consequence,  deriving  the  notion  of  a  mystical  succession 
throughout  all  time,  which  does  not  and  cannot  preserve  the 
spirit  of  the  Apostles'  principles,  but  paralyzes  the  free  action 
of  the  Church,  and  introducing  a  principle  incompatible  with 
all  sound  notions  of  law  and  government,  at  one  time  crushes 
the  Church  with  its  tyranny,  and  at  another  distracts  it  with 
its  anarchy.  I  am  convinced  that  the  whole  mischief  of  the 
great  Antichristfan  apostasy  has  for  its  root  the  tenet  of  "  a 
priestly  government  transmitted  by  a  mystical  succession  from 
the  Apostles." 


104  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

CLXXII.      *TO   A.   H.    CLOUGH,   ESQ. 

Fox  How,  January  29, 1838. 

I  hope  to  see  you  before  another  week  is  over ;  still,  as  in 
my  short  visits  to  Oxford  I  see  everybody  in  some  hurry,  I 
wished  to  send  these  few  lines  by  Hill  to  thank  you  for  a  very 
kind  letter  which  I  received  from  you  in  November,  and  which 
you  might  perhaps  think  I  had  altogether  forgotten.  I  \\;is 
very  much  obliged  to  you  for  it,  and  pray  believe  that,  when- 
ever you  can  write  to  me,  your  letters  will  give  me  the  greatest 
interest  and  pleasure.  I  delight  in  your  enjoyment  of  Oxford, 
and  in  what  you  say  of  the  union  amongst  our  Rugby  men 
there.  But  I  cannot  think  that  you  are  yet  thoroughly  ac- 
quainted with  the  country  about  Oxford,  as  you  prefer  the 
Rugby  fields  to  it.  Not  to  mention  Bagley  Wood,  do  you 
know  the  little  valleys  that  debouche  on  the  Valley  of  the 
Thames  behind  the  Hinkseys ;  do  you  know  Horspath,  nest- 
ling under  Shotover ;  or  Elsfield,  on  its  green  slope,  or  all  the 
variety  of  Cumnor  Hill,  or  the  wider  skirmishing  ground  by 
Beckley,  Stanton  St.  John's,  and  Foresthill,  which  we  used  to 
expatiate  over  on  whole  holidays  ? 

As  for  the  school,  Tickell's  success  was  most  welcome  and 
most  beneficial ;  the  railway  and  the  multitude  of  coaches  will 
I  suppose  bring  with  them  their  anxieties ;  but  it  is  of  no  use 
to  anticipate  them  beforehand.  I  trust  with  God's  blessing 
we  shall  continue  to  go  on  doing  some  good,  restraining  some 
evil,  but  we  shall  ever  do  too  little  of  the  former,  and  leave 
too  much  of  the  latter  in  vigor,  to  allow  of  any  feeling  of  self- 
satisfaction.  But  I  have  an  unmixed  pleasure  in  thinking  of 
many  of  those  who  have  been  and  who  are  still  with  us :  and 
this  pleasure  more  than  makes  up  for  many  cares.  I  was  very 
glad  to  have  Burbidge  here,  and  delighted  to  see  how  he 
enjoyed  the  country.  You  may  be  sure  that  we  shah1  be  very 
glad  to  have  you  and  him  in  our  neighborhood  in  the  summer, 
if  his  castle  is  ever  built.  I  have  been  at  work  steadily,  and 
have  begun  the  second  volume  of  my  History :  the  first  will  I 
suppose  now  go  to  press  without  any  farther  delays.  We  are 
all  well,  and  unite  in  kindest  regards  to  you. 


LIFE    OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  105 

CLXXIII.       TO    SIR    T.    S.    PASLEY,   BART. 

Rugby,  February  16, 1838. 

You  may  perhaps  have  seen  in  the  papers  an  account  of  our 
meeting  at  the  London  Uni^rsity ;  but  at  any  rate  I  will  keep 
my  promise,  and  give  you  my  own  report  of  it.  Every  single 
member  of  the  Senate  except  myself  was  convinced  of  the  ne- 
cessity, according  to  the  Charter,  of  giving  the  Jews  Degrees  ; 
all  were  therefore  inclined  to  make  an  exemption  in  their 
favor  as  to  the  New  Testament  Examination,  and  thus  to 
make  that  Examination  not  in  all  cases  indispensable.  Most 
were  disposed  to  make  it  altogether  voluntary,  and  that  was 
the  course  which  was  at  last  adopted.  The  Examination  is 
not  to  be  now  restricted  to  any  one  part  of  the  New  Testament, 
and  it  is  to  be  followed  by  a  certificate  of  a  man's  having 
simply  passed  it,  and  a  class  paper  for  those  who  are  distin- 
guished in  it.  I  think  that  it  will  be  passed  so  generally,  as 
to  mark  very  much  those  who  do  not  pass  it ;  and  in  this  way 
it  will  do  good.  It  also  saves  the  University  from  the  reproach 
of  neglecting  Christianity  altogether.  But  it  does  not  main- 
tain the  principle  which  I  wished ;  and  as  on  the  one  hand  I 
think  it  neither  fair  nor  of  any  use  to  go  on  agitating  the 
question  with  every  one  against  me,  so,  on  the  other,  I  have 
no  satisfaction  in  belonging  to  a  body  whose  views  are  so  dif- 
ferent from  mine ;  and  I  should  leave  them  at  once,  were  I  not 
anxious  to  see  something  of  the  working  of  our  Scriptural 
Examination,  and,  if  possible,  to  try  to  settle  it  on  a  good 
footing.  After  we  left  you  at  Bowness,  we  had  no  farther 
adventures.  When  we  came  to  Lyth,  the  snow  was  all  gone, 
and  between  Lancaster  and  Preston  the  roads  were  quite 
dirty.  We  slept  at  Yarrow  Bridge,  embarked  on  the  railway 
the  next  day  at  Warrington,  and  got  safe  home  by  about  ten 
o'clock.  Our  visit  to  Oxford  was  very  delightful;  we  saw 
great  numbers  of  my  old  pupils,  and  met  with  a  very  kind 
reception  from  every  one.  Have  you  yet  got  Pusey's  Sermon, 
or  seen  the  review  of  it  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  ?  That 
article  was  written,  I  am  told,  by  Merivale,  the  Political  Econ- 
omy Professor ;  I  have  looked  at  it,  and  like  its  tone  and  abil- 
ity, though  I  do  not  think  that  it  takes  the  question  on  the 
highest  ground.  From  Oxford  we  went  to  London,  where  my 
two  days  were  passed,  one  at  the  University,  and  the  other  at 
Mr.  Phillips's  room,  where  I  sat  for  my  portrait.  Then  we 
went  down  to  Laleham,  from  whence  I  paid  a  visit  to  Eton,  a 


106  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

place  which  has  always  a  peculiar  interest  for  me.  And  now 
we  are  as  regularly  settled  at  our  work  as  if  we  had  never 
stirred  from  Rugby,  and  looking  forward  to  the  speedy  open- 
ing of  the  Railway  to  Birmingham,  to  effect  which,  we  have 
six  hundred  men  working  night  and  day,  as  hard  as  the  frost 
will  let  them.  I  rejoice  in  the  prospect  of  a  peaceful  settle- 
ment of  the  affair  of  the  Caroline ;  it  is  not  easy  to  make  out 
the  facts  exactly,  nor,  if  I  knew  the  truth,  am  I  quite  sure  as 
to  the  law.  But  one  is  glad  to  find  the  American  Govern- 
ment disposed  to  act  justly  and  in  a  friendly  spirit ;  and  the 
Buffalo  and  the  Canada  Orangemen  will  not,  if  this  be  the 
case,  be  able  to  involve  the  two  countries  in  war.  Alas,  for 
all  our  evergreens,  if  these  biting  east  winds  last  much  longer. 
Poor  Murphy's  reputation  must  be  pretty  well  at  an  end  now. 

CLXXIV.      TO    THE    BISHOP    OF   NORWICH. 

Rugby,  February  17, 1838. 

The  result  of  the  meeting  of  the  London  University,  on  the 
7th,  has  placed  me  personally  in  a  situation  of  great  embar- 
rassment; and  I  venture  to  apply  to  you,  to  learn  whether 
you,  on  your  own  part,  also  feel  the  same  difficulty.  On  the  one 
hand,  the  Senate  were  so  unanimous  in  their  opinion,  that  the 
admission  of  unbelievers  of  all  sorts  to  Degrees  in  Arts  could 
not  be  resisted  under  the  terms  of  the  Charter,  that  I  should 
not  think  it  becoming  to  agitate  the  question  again.  And  I 
think  that  the  voluntary  examination  which  we  have  gained  is 
really  a  great  point,  and  I  am  strongly  tempted  to  assist,  so 
far  as  I  can,  towards  carrying  it  into  effect.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  University  has  solemnly  avowed  a  principle  to  which 
I  am  totally  opposed,  —  namely,  that  education  need  not  be 
connected  with  Christianity ;  and  I  do  not  see  how  I  can  join 
in  conferring  a  degree  on  those  who,  in  my  judgment,  cannot 
be  entitled  to  it ;  or  hi  pronouncing  that  to  be  a  complete  edu- 
cation, which  I  believe  to  be  no  more  so  than  a  man  without 
his  soul  or  spirit  is  a  complete  man.  Besides,  my  continuing 
to  belong  to  the  University,  may  be  ascribed  to  an  unwilling- 
ness to  offend  the  Government  from  interested  motives ;  all 
compliances  with  the  powers  that  be  being  apt  to  be  ascribed 
to  unworthy  considerations.  Yet,  again,  you  will  believe  me, 
though  Newman  probably  would  not,  when  I  say,  that  I  feel 
exceedingly  unwilling  to  retire  on  such  grounds  as  mine,  while 
three  Bishops  of  our  Church  do  not  feel  it  inconsistent  with 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  107 

their  duty  to  remain  in  the  University ;  it  seems  very  like 
presumption  on  my  part,  and  a  coming  forward  without  author- 
ity, when  those,  who  have  authority,  judge  that  there  is  no 
occasion  for  any  protest.  My  defence  must  be  that  the  prin- 
ciple to  which  I  so  object,  and  which  appears  to  me  to  be  in- 
volved by  a  continuance  in  the  University,  may  not  appear  to 
others  to  be  at  stake  on  the  present  occasion :  that  I  am  not 
professing,  therefore,  or  pretending  to  be  more  zealous  for 
Christianity  than  other  members  of  the  Senate,  but  that  what 
appears  to  me  to  be  dangerous  appears  to  them  to  be  perfectly 
innocent ;  and  that  they  naturally,  therefore,  think  most  of 
the  good  which  the  University  will  do,  while  I  fear  that  all 
that  good  will  be  purchased  by  a  greater  evil,  and  cannot, 
therefore,  take  any  part  in  the  good,  as  I  should  wish  to  do, 
because,  to  my  apprehension,  it  will  be  bought  too  dearly.  On 
the  whole,  my  leaning  is  towards  resigning ;  and  then  I  think 
that  I  ought  to  do  it  speedily,  as  my  own  act,  and  not  one  into 
which  I  may  seem  to  have  been  shamed  by  the  remonstrances 
or  example  of  others  —  of  King's  College,  for  instance ;  if,  as 
seems  possible,  they  may  renounce  all  connection  with  us  after 
our  late  decision. 

CLXXV.      TO.    REV.   J.    K.    TYLER. 

February  17, 1838. 

You  will  feel,  I  think,  the  exceedingly  difficult  situation  in 
which  I  am  placed.  I  am  personally  very  anxious  to  resign  ; 
but  the  engine  is  so  powerful,  that  I  hardly  dare  to  abandon 
all  share  in  the  guidance  of  it,  while  there  is  any  chance  of 
turning  it  to  good.  I  feel  also,  that  the  decision  of  King's 
College  would  greatly  assist  in  determining  me  how  to  act. 
If  they  break  off  all  connection  with  us,  and  thus  leave  us 
wholly  in  the  condition  of  an  University  for  men  of  one  party 
only,  I  should  be  in  haste  to  be  gone ;  but  if  they  stay  on, 
and  are  willing  to  avail  themselves  of  our  religious  Examina- 
tion, I  should  like  to  stay  on  too,  to  make  that  Examination 
as  good  as  I  could.  If  you  know  what  Hugh  Rose's  senti- 
ments are  on  this  point,  will  you  have  the  goodness  to  write 
me  a  few  lines  about  it  ?  Your  Consecration  Sermon  for  the 
Bishop  of  Salisbury  never  reached  me,  or  otherwise  I  hope 
that  I  should  have  had  the  grace  to  thank  you  for  it  long  ere 
now.  I  used  to  think  that  we  agreed  well,  but  I  heard  that 
you  had  been  shocked  by  my  Church  Reform  Pamphlet ;  and 


108  LIFE    OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

many  men  with  whom  I  once  agreed  have  been  scared  in 
these  later  days,  and  have,  as  I  think,  allowed  their  fears  to 
drive  them  to  the  wrong  quarter  for  relief.  I  could  tell  you 
readily  enough  with  what  parties  I  disagreed  —  namely,  with 
all.  My  own  TtXtiorarov  TfXos  I  shall  never  see  fulfilled,  and 

what  is  the  least  bad,  bevrepos  TT\OVS,  I  hardly  know 

I  heard  of  your  bad  illness,  and  was  glad  to  find  that  you 
were  recovered  again.  I,  too,  have  lately  felt  that  I  am  not 
so  young  as  when  we  skirmished  in  the  common  room  at  Oriel, 
or  speared  on  Shotover ;  but  God  gives  me  still  so  much 
health  and  strength,  that  I  have  no  excuse  for  not  serving 
him  more  actively. 

CLXXVI.      TO   AN    OLD    PUPIL. 

Rugby,  February  28, 1838. 

Some  passages  of  your  letter  have,  I  confess, 

alarmed  me,  as  seeming  to  show  that  you  do  not  enough  allow 
for  the  effect  of  the  local  influences  around  you ;  that  ques- 
tions assume  an  unreal  importance  in  your  eyes,  because  of 
their  accidental  magnitude  within  the  immediate  range  of 
your  own  view ;  that  you  are  disposed  to  dispute  great  truths, 
because  in  the  society  into  which  you  happen  to  be  thrown,  it 
has  become  the  fashion  to  assail  them.  Now,  I  remember 
that  in  Henry  Marty n's  Journal,  written  when  he  was  in 
Persia,  there  is  a  passage  to  this  effect :  "  I  reviewed  the  evi- 
dence hi  proof  of  the  falsehood  of  Mahommedanism,  and  found 
it  clear  and  convincing."  It  was  natural  that  to  him,  h'ving 
in  Persia,  Mahommedanism  should  have  acquired  an  impor- 
tance of  which  we  in  Europe  can  form  no  idea ;  it  was  natural 
that  he  should  endeavor  to  satisfy  himself  of  the  falsehood  of 
that  which  we  in  England  may  dismiss  from  our  minds  with 
little  hesitation.  But  I  think  it  would  have  startled  us,  had 
we  found  him  attaching  so  much  weight  to  the  goodness  and 
the  ability  of  the  Persian  Imaums  around  him,  as  to  conceive 
it  possible  that  they  might  be  right,  and  that  he  might  find 
himself  obliged  to  abandon  his  faith  in  Christ,  and  adopt  Islam. 
Now,  you  will  forgive  me  for  saying  that  a  passage  hi  your 
letter  did  startle  me  nearly  as  much,  when  —  impressed  as  it 
seems  by  the  local  and  present  authority  of  Newmanism  — 
you  imagined  the  possibility  that  you  might  be  forced  to  look 
elsewhere  than  in  the  New  Testament  for  the  full  picture  of 
Christianity ;  that  you  might,  on  the  supposed  result  of  read- 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  109 

ing  through  certain  books,  written  in  the  second  and  third 
centuries,  be  inclined  to  adopt  the  views  of  St.  Paul's  Juda- 
izing  opponents,  and  reject  his  own.  I  think  that  you  state 
the  question  fairly  —  that  it  does  in  fact  involve  a  choice  be- 
tween the  Gospel  of  Christ,  as  declared  by  himself  and  by  his 
Apostles,  and  that  deadly  apostasy  which  St.  Paul  in  his  life- 
time saw  threatening,  —  nay,  the  effects  of  which,  during  his 
captivity,  had  well-nigh  supplanted  his  own  Gospel  in  the 
Asiatic  Churches,  and  which,  he  declares,  would  come  speedily 
with  a  fearful  power  of  lying  wonders.  The  Newmanites 
would  not,  I  think,  yet  dare  to  admit  that  their  religion  was 
different  from  that  of  the  New  Testament;  but  I  am  perfectly 
satisfied  that  it  is  so,  and  that  what  they  call  Ecclesiastical 
Tradition,  contains  things  wholly  inconsistent  with  the  doc- 
trines of  our  Lord,  of  St.  Paul,  of  St.  Peter,  and  of  St.  John. 
And  it  is  because  I  see  these  on  the  one  side,  and  on  the  other 
not  the  writings  merely  of  fallible  men,  but  of  men  who,  ever; 
in  human  matters,  are  most  unfit  to  be  an  authority,  from  their 
being  merely  the  echo  of  the  opinions  of  their  time,  instead  of 
soaring  far  above  them  into  the  regions  of  eternal  truth ;  (the 
unvarying  mark  of  all  those  great  men  who  are  and  have  been 
—  not  infallible  indeed  —  but  truly  an  authority,  claiming  a 
priori  our  deference,  and  making  it  incumbent  on  us  to  ex- 
amine well  before  we  pronounce  in  the  peculiar  line  of  their 
own  greatness  against  them)  —  because  the  question  is  truly 
between  Paul  and  Cyprian ;  and  because  all  that  is  in  any 
way  good  in  Cyprian,  which  is  much,  is  that  which  he  gained 
from  Paul  and  from  Christianity,  —  that  I  should  not  feel 
myself  called  upon,  except  from  local  or  temporary  circum- 
stances, to  enter  into  the  inquiry.  And,  if  I  did  enter  into 
it,  I  should  do  it  in  Martyn's  spirit,  to  satisfy  myself,  by  a 
renewed  inquiry,  that  I  had  unshaken  grounds  for  rejecting 
the  apostasy,  and  for  cleaving  to  Christ  and  to  His  Apostles  ; 
not  as  if  by  possibility  I  could  change  my  Master,  and  having 
known  Christ  and  the  perfections  of  His  Gospel,  could  ever, 
whilst  life  and  reason  remained,  go  from  Him,  to  bow  down 
before  an  unsightly  idol. 

And  what  is  there  a  priori  to  tempt  me  to  think  that  this 
idol  should  be  a  god  ?  This,  merely,  —  that  in  a  time  of  much 
excitement,  when  popular  opinions  in  their  most  vulgar  form 
were  very  noisy,  and  seemed  to  some  very  alarming,  there 
should  have  arisen  a  strong  reaction,  in  which  the  common 
elements  of  Toryism  and  High-Church  feeling,  at  all  times 

VOL    II.  10 


110  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

rife  in  Oxford,  should  have  been  moulded  into  a  novel  form 
by  the  peculiar  spirit  of  the  place,  —  that  sort  of  religious  aris- 
tocratical  chivalry  so  catching  to  young  men,  to  students,  and 
to  members  of  the  aristocracy,  —  and  still  more,  by  the  revival 
of  the  spirit  of  the  Nonjurors  in  two  or  three  zealous  and  able 
men,  who  have  given  a  systematic  character  to  the  whole. 
The  very  same  causes  produced  the  same  result  after  the 
Reformation  in  the  growth  and  spread  of  Jesuitism.  No  man 
can  doubt  the  piety  of  Loyola  and  many  of  his  followers ;  yet, 
what  Christian,  in  England  at  least,  can  doubt  that,  as  Jesuit- 
ism, it  was  not  of  God  ;  that  it  was  grounded  on  falsehood, 
and  strove  to  propagate  falsehood  ?  So,  again,  the  Puritans 
led  to  the  Nonjurors  ;  zealous,  many  of  them,  and  pious,  but 
narrow-minded  in  the  last  degree,  fierce,  and  slanderous ;  and, 
even  when  they  were  opposing  that  which  was  very  wrong, 
meeting  it  with  something  as  wrong  or  worse.  Kenn,  and 
Hickes,  and  Dodwell,  and  Leslie,  are  now  historical  charac- 
ters; we  can  see  their  party  in  its  beginning,  middle,  and 
end,  and  it  bears  on  it  all  the  marks  of  an  heresy  and  of  a 
faction  whose  success  would  have  obstructed  good,  and 
preserved  or  restored  evil.  Whenever  you  see  the  present 
party  acting  as  a  party,  they  are  just  like  the  Nonjurors,  — 
busy,  turbulent,  and  narrow-minded ;  with  no  great  or  good 
objects,  but  something  that  is  at  best  fantastic,  and  generally 
mischievous.  That  many  of  these  men,  as  of  the  Nonjurors 
and  of  the  Jesuits,  are  far  better  than  their  cause  and  princi- 
ples I  readily  allow ;  but  their  cause  is  ever  one  and  the 
same  —  a  violent  striving  for  forms  and  positive  institutions, 
which,  ever  since  Christ's  Gospel  has  been  preached,  has 
been  always  wrong,  —  wrong,  as  the  predominant  mark  of  a 
party ;  because  there  has  always  been  a  greater  good  which 
needed  to  be  upheld,  and  a  greater  evil  which  needed  to  be 
combated,  even  when  what  they  upheld  was  good,  and  what 
they  combated  was  bad.  And  if  this  same  spirit  infected  the 
early  Church  also,  as  from  the  circumstances  of  the  times  and 
the  position  of  the  Church  it  was  exceedingly  likely  to  do,  — 
if  it  infected  all  the  eminent  ecclesiastical  leaders  whose 
power  and  influence  it  was  so  eminently  fitted  to  promote,  — 
if  they  by  their  credit,  (in  many  respects  most  deserved,)  per- 
suaded the  Church  to  adopt  it,  —  shall  we  dignify  their  error 
by  the  specious  name  of  the  "  Consent  of  Antiquity,"  and  call 
it  an  "  Apostolical  Tradition,"  and  think  that  it  should  guide 
us  in  the  interpretation  of  Scripture  ;  when  we  see  distinctly 


LIFE  OF    DR.  ARNOLD.  Ill 

in  the  Scripture  itself  that  this  very  same  spirit  was  uniformly 
opposed  to  our  Lord  and  His  Apostles,  and  when  it  is  one  of 
the  commonest  sophisms  which  History  exposes,  that  the 
principle  of  error  which  a  great  truth  had  dislodged,  should 
disguise  itself  in  the  outward  form,  and  borrow  the  nomen- 
clature of  the  system  which  had  defeated  it ;  and  then  assert 
that  its  nature  is  changed,  and  that  the  truth  no  longer  con- 
demns it,  but  approves  it ?  "If  we  had  lived  in  the  days  of 
our  fathers  we  would  not  have  been  partakers  in  the  blood  of 
the  Prophets."  "  Paul  rightly  condemned  trusting  to  circum- 
cision, but  baptism  is  quite  another  thing."  Whereas  all  the 
Newmanite  language  about  baptism  might  be,  and  probably 
was,  used  by  the  Jews  and  Judaizers  about  circumcision  ;  the 
error  in  both  is  the  same  ;  i.  e.  the  teaching  that  an  outward 
bodily  act  can  have  a  tendency  to  remove  moral  evil ;  or 
rather,  the  teaching  that  God  is  pleased  to  act  upon  the  spirit 
through  the  body,  in  a  way  agreeable  to  none  of  the  known 
laws  of  our  constitution ;  a  doctrine  which  our  Lord's  lan- 
guage about  meats  not  defiling  a  man,  "  because  the  do  not 
go  into  the  heart,  but  into  the  belly,"  puts  down  in  every 
possible  form  under  which  it  may  attempt  to  veil  itself. 

CLXXVII.      *TO    C.   J.   VAUGHAN,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  March  4, 1838. 

You  have  my  most  hearty  congratulations  on  your  success 
in  the  Examination,  which  I  believe  few  will  more  rejoice  at 
than  I  do.  I  cannot  regret  you  being  bracketed  with  another 
man  ;  for,  judging  by  my  own  feelings  about  you,  his  friends 
would  have  been  much  grieved  if  he  had  been  below  you  ; 
and  when  two  men  do  so  well,  there  ought,  according  to 
my  notions,  to  be  neither  a  better  nor  a  worse  of  them. 
Thank  you  much  for  your  kindness  in  sending  the  Class 
paper,  and  for  your  Declamation,  which  I  like  very  much. 
How  glad  shall  I  be  to  see  you  when  your  Medal  Examina- 
tion is  over,  and  when,  the  preparation  for  life  being  ended, 
you  will  begin  to  think  of  fife,  its  actual  self.  May  it  be  to 
us  both,  my  dear  Vaughan,  that  true  life  which  begins  and 
has  no  end  in  God.  My  wife  and  the  children  fully  share  in 
our  joy  on  your  account,  and  join  in  kindest  remembrances. 


112  LIFE  OF  DB.  ARNOLD. 

CLXXVIII.      TO   THE    EARL    OF   BURLINGTON. 

(Chancellor  of  the  University  of  London.) 

Rugby,  March  17, 1838. 

I  fear  that  I  may  be  too  late  in  offering  the  following  sug- 
gestions, but  I  had  not  observed  the  progress  of  the  Committees, 
till  I  found  by  the  reports,  which  I  received  this  morning, 
that  a  resolution  had  been  passed,  but  not  yet,  I  believe,  con- 
firmed, to  adopt  the  recommendation  of  the  Vice-Chancellor, 
that  the  examinations  should  be  conducted  entirely  through 
the  medium  of  printed  papers.  I  think  that  is  a  point  on 
which  the  experience  of  Oxford,  entirely  confirmed  in  my 
judgment  by  my  own  experience  here,  is  well  deserving  of 
consideration,  —  because  we  habitually  use  and  know  the  value 
of  printed  papers,  and  we  know  also  the  advantages  to  be 
derived  from  a  viva  voce  examination,  of  which  Cambridge 
has  made  no  trial.  I  think  that  these  advantages  are  much 
too  great  to  be  relinquished  by  us  altogether. 

1st  The  exercise  of  extempore  translation  is  the  only 
thing  in  our  system  of  education,  which  enables  a  young  man 
to  express  himself  fluently  and  in  good  language  without  pre- 
meditation. Wherever  it  is  attended  to,  it  is  an  exercise  of 
exceeding  value ;  it  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  best  possible  modes 
of  instruction  in  English  composition,  because  the  constant 
comparison  with  the  different  idioms  of  the  languages,  from 
which  you  are  translating,  shows  you  in  the  most  lively  man- 
ner the  peculiar  excellences  and  defects  of  our  own  ;  and  if 
men  are  tried  by  written  papers  only,  one  great  and  most 
valuable  talent,  that  of  readiness,  and  the  very  useful  habit  of 
retaining  presence  of  mind,  so  as  to  be  able  to  avail  one's  self 
without  nervousness  of  all  one's  knowledge,  and  to  express  it 
at  once  by  word  of  mouth,  are  never  tried  at  all. 

2d.  Nothing  can  equal  a  viva  voce  examination  for  trying 
a  candidate's  knowledge  in  the  contents  of  a  long  history  or  of 
a  philosophical  treatise.  I  have  known  men  examined  for  two 
hours  together  viva  voce  in  Aristotle,  and  they  have  been  thus 
tried  more  completely  than  could  be  done  by  printed  papers  ; 
for  a  man's  answers  suggest  continually  further  questions ; 
you  can  at  once  probe  his  weak  points ;  and,  where  you  find 
him  strong,  you  can  give  him  an  opportunity  of  doing  him- 
self justice,  by  bringing  him  out  especially  on  those  very 
points. 

3d.   Time  is  saved,  and  thereby  weariness  and  exhaustion 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  113 

of  mind  to  both  parties.     A  man  can  speak  faster  than  he  can 
write,  and  he  is  relieved  by  the  variety  of  the  exercise. 

4th.  The  e'clat  of  a  viva  voce  examination  is  not  to  be 
despised.  When  a  clever  man  goes  into  the  schools  at  Ox- 
ford, the  room  is  filled  with  hearers  of  all  ranks  in  the  Uni- 
versity. His  powers  are  not  merely  taken  on  trust  from  the 
report  of  the  examiners  ;  they  are  witnessed  by  the  University 
at  large,  and  their  peculiar  character  is  seen  and  appreciated 
also.  I  have  known  the  eloquence  of  a  man's  translations 
from  the  poets  and  orators  and  historians,  and  the  clearness 
and  neatness  of  his  answers  in  his  philosophical  examination, 
long  and  generally  remembered,  with  a  distinctness  of  impres- 
sion very  different  from  that  produced  by  the  mere  knowledge 
that  he  is  in  the  first  class.  And  in  London,  the  advantages 
of  such  a  public  viva  voce  examination  would  be  greater  of 
course  than  anywhere  else,  because  the  audience  might  be 
larger  and  more  mixed. 

5th.  Presence  of  mind  is  a  quality  which  deserves  to  be 
encouraged  —  nervousness  is  a  defect  which  men  feel  painfully 
in  many  instances  through  life.  Education  should  surely 
attach  some  reward  to  a  valuable  quality  which  may  be  ac- 
quired in  great  measure  by  early  practice,  and  should  impose 
some  penalty  or  some  loss  on  the  want  of  it.  Now,  if  you  have 
printed  papers,  you  effectually  save  a  man  from  suffering  too 
much  from  his  nervousness  ;  but  if  you  have  printed  papers 
only,  you  do  not,  I  think,  encourage  as  you  should  do  the  ex- 
cellence of  presence  of  mind,  and  the  power  of  making  our 
knowledge  available  on  the  instant. 

6th.  It  is  an  error  to  suppose  that  no  exact  judgment  of  a 
man  can  be  formed  from  a  viva  voce  examination.  Like  all 
other  things,  such  an  examination  requires  some  attention 
and  some  practice  on  the  part  of  those  who  conduct  it ;  but 
all  who  have  had  much  experience  in  it  are  well  aware  that, 
combined  with  an  examination  on  paper,  it  is  entirely  satisfac- 
tory. In  fact,  either  system,  of  papers,  or  of  viva  voce  exami- 
nation, if  practised  exclusively,  does  but  half  try  the  men. 
Each  calls  forth  faculties  which  the  other  does  not  reach 
equally. 

As  it  is  not  in  my  power  to  be  present  at  the  next  meet- 
ings of  the  University,  I  have  ventured  to  say  thus  much  by 
letter.  I  trust  that  I  shall  not  be  thought  presumptuous  in 
having  done  so. 

10*  H 


114  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

CLXXIX.      *TO    DR.    GREENHILL. 

Rugby,  May  15,  1838. 

I  have  been  lately  writing  and  preaching  two  sermons  on 
the  subject  of  prophecy,  embodying  some  views  which  you 
may  perhaps  have  heard  from  me  six  years  since,  for  they 
have  been  long  in  my  mind,  although  I  never  put  them  out 
fully  in  writing.  I  have  some  thoughts  of  publishing  them 
now,  in  Oxford,  with  something  of  a  Preface,  developing  the 
notions  more  fully.  But,  ere  I  do  this,  as  I  have  never  found 
anything  satisfactory  on  the  subject,  I  wish  to  learn  from  one 
who  admires  and  knows  pretty  thoroughly,  the  writings  both 
of  the  early  Christian  writers  and  of  those  of  the  Church  of 
England,  what  he  would  recommend,  as  containing  a  good 
view  of  the  nature  and  interpretation  of  prophecy.  This  I 
know  you  can  learn  from  Pusey,  and  I  should  be  much  obliged 
to  you  to  ask  him  ;  nor  should  I  object  to  your  saying  that 
you  are  asking  for  me  ;  only  you  need  not  say  anything  of  my 
intended  publication,  which  indeed  is  a  very  hypothetical  in- 
tention after  all.  I  wish  sincerely  to  read  what  Pusey,  and 
those  who  think  with  him,  consider  as  good  on  any  subject ; 
on  this  particular  one  I  do  not  know  that  their  views  would 
differ  from  mine.  My  small  respect  for  those  writers  whom 
Pusey  admires  has  been  purely  the  result  of  experience : 
whenever  I  have  read  them,  I  have  found  them  wanting.  I 
should  be  very  honestly  glad  to  find  some  one  amongst  them 
who  would  give  me  the  knowledge  which  I  want. 

We  are  all  tolerably  well,  but  the  weather  is  almost  pain- 
ful to  me  ;  —  it  seems  to  inflict  such  suffering  on  all  nature. 

CLXXX.      TO    MR.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  May  18,  1838. 

The  first  volume  of  Rome  will  be  out  on  Wednesday,  and 
you  will  receive  your  copy,  I  hope,  immediately.  I  ask  for 
your  congratulations  on  the  termination  of  this  part  of  my 
labors,  whatever  may  be  the  merits  or  success  of  the  book. 
One  object  of  publishing  it  in  separate  volumes  is,  that  the 
sensible  criticisms  on  the  first  may  be  of  use  to  its  successors. 
I  hope  that  I  shall  have  some  such,  and  I  shall  receive  them 
very  thankfully.  I  want  hints  as  to  points  which  require  ex- 
amination, for  I  may  pass  over  things  through  pure  ignorance, 
because  I  may  know  nothing  about  them ;  but  as  to  the  great 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  115 

point,  —  the  richness  and  power  of  the  narrative,  —  to  that  no 
eriticism  can  help  me ;  my  own  standard,  I  believe,  is  as  high 
as  any  man's  can  be,  and  my  inability  to  come  up  to  it  or 
near  it  in  my  execution  constantly  annoys  me.  Yet  I  hope 
and  think  that  you  will  on  the  whole  like  the  book ;  you  will 
not  sympathize  with  all  the  sentiments  about  Aristocracy,  but 
I  think  if  you  ever  see  the  subsequent  volumes,  you  will  find 
that  I  have  not  spared  the  faults  of  Democracy.  Still,  I  con- 
fess that  Aristocracy  as  a  predominant  element  in  a  govern- 
ment, whether  it  be  aristocracy  of  skin,  of  race,  of  wealth,  of 
nobility,  or  of  priesthood,  has  been  to  my  mind  the  greatest 
source  of  evil  throughout  the  world,  because  it  has  been  the 
most  universal  and  the  most  enduring.  Democracy  and  tyr- 
anny, if  in  themselves  worse,  have  been,  and  I  think  ever  will 
be,  less  prevalent,  at  least  in  Europe ;  they  may  be  the 
Cholera,  but  aristocracy  is  Consumption  ;  and  you  know  that 
in  our  climate  Consumption  is  a  far  worse  scourge  in  the  long 
run  than  Cholera.  The  great  defect  of  the  volume  will  be 
the  want  of  individual  characters,  which  was  unavoidable,  but 
yet  must  lower  the  interest  and  the  value  of  the  history.  The 
generalities  on  which  I  have  been  obliged  to  dwell,  from  the 
total  want  of  materials  for  painting  portraits,  are  a  sad  con- 
trast to  those  inimitable  living  pictures  with  which  Carlyle's 
History  of  the  French  Revolution  abounds. 

[After  speaking  of  the  London  University.]  What  the 
end  will  be  I  can  scarcely  tell,  but  I  have  no  pleasure  in  re- 
maining in  the  University,  and  yet  I  do  not  like  to  leave  it 
till  the  very  last  momeut.  It  makes  me  feel  very  lovingly  to 
Rugby,  where  I  seem  to  have,  in  principle  at  least,  what  I 
most  like,  —  that  is,  a  place  neither  like  the  University  of 

London,   nor   yet   like   Oxford, where   we   are  not 

ashamed  of  Christianity  or  of  the  Church  of  England,  while 
we  have  no  sympathy  with  those  opinions  and  feelings  which 
possess  the  majority  of  the  clergy,  from  Archbishop  Howley 
downwards. 

CLXXXI.      TO    THE   BISHOP    OF   NORWICH. 

Rugby,  June  7,  1838. 

I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  the  information  contained  in 
your  letter.  I  have  always  objected  to  the  Rule  which  you 
have  marked  A  ;  whereas  I  agree  with  Rule  B,  if  by  "  pecu- 
liarity of  doctrinal  views  "  be  meant  the  peculiar  opinions  of 


116  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

any  denomination  of  Christians.  But  Rule  A  seems  to  me 
to  be  needlessly  offensive.  As  the  theological  Examination  is 
not  necessary  to  the  Degree,  no  one  surely  but  Christians 
would  wish  to  pass  it ;  and  why  should  we  say  that  we  do 
not  intend  it  to  imply  any  man's  belief  in  Christianity  ?  I, 
for  one,  could  never  examine  any  man  in  the  New  Testament, 
if  I  thought  that  he  did  not  believe  it,  or  was  not  in  a  state  of 
mind  in  which  he  was  honestly  and  respectfully  acquiring  a 
knowledge  of  it  with  a  view  to  his  religious  belief.  I  have 
always  thought  that  to  examine  in  it  merely  as  a  matter  of 
curious  information  was  a  very  great  profaneness. 

Again,  have  you  thought  anything  more  of  what  Arch- 
bishop Whately  suggested  to  Dr.  Jerrard,  through  Dr.  Dick- 
enson,  that  the  certificate  of  a  man's  Degree  should  notice  his 
having  passed  the  theological  Examination  ?  Now  I  see  that 
the  theological  Examination  is  to  follow  the  Degree,  so  that 
this  cannot  be  done;  and  the  Degree  is  to  air  intents  and 
purposes  complete  before  the  theological  Examination  even 
comes  into  question.  And,  when  I  find  from  Hugh  Rose's 
letter  to  Hare,  in  answer  to  some  inquiries  of  mine,  that  he 
will  care  little  whether  the  students  of  King's  College  pass 
our  Examination  in  theology  or  no,  I  am  greatly  afraid  that 
our  Examination  will  fail  practically,  as  well  as  in  principle, 
to  make  a  marked  distinction  between  the  Christian  and  un- 
christian students  of  our  University :  —  the  one  great  point 
which  Warburton  dreads,  and  I  deem  essential. 

I  cannot  disguise  from  myself  that  the  University  of  Lon- 
don, in  its  public  capacity,  cannot  be  considered  as  a  Chris- 
tian institution,  although  it  may  happen  that  all  its  branches 
individually  may  be  Christians ;  and  therefore  I  must  with- 
draw from  it.  Living  at  such  a  distance  as  I  do,  I  can  be  of 
no  practical  use ;  and,  if  I  could,  I  feel  that  the  practical 
good  to  the  extent  which  alone  would  be  possible  would  be 
dearly  bought  by  my  acquiescence  in  a  principle  which  I 
so  strongly  disapprove. 

To  see  my  hopes  for  this  new  University  thus  frustrated, 
is  one  of  the  greatest  disappointments  I  have  ever  met  with. 
But  I  cannot  be  reconciled  to  such  a  total  absence  of  all  con- 
fession of  the  Lord  Jesus,  and  such  a  total  neglect  of  the 
command  to  do  all  things  in  His  name,  as  seems  to  me  to  be 
hopelessly  involved  in  the  constitution  of  our  University. 

As  to  the  manner  of  my  resignation,  I  would  fain  do  it 
in  the  quietest  manner  possible,  consistent  with  the  simple 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  117 

declaration  of  the  reasons  which  led  me  to  it.  I  suppose 
that  the  proper  way  would  be  to  write  a  short  letter  to  the 
Chancellor. 

CLXXXII.       TO    AN    OLD    PUPIL.    (D.)  ON    DIFFICULTIES    IN 

SUBSCRIPTION. 

Fox  How,  June  22,  1838. 

My  own  answer  must  be  clear  to  you  from  my 

own  practice.  I  do  not  believe  the  damnatory  clauses  in  the 
Athanasian  Creed,  under  any  qualification  given  of  them,  ex- 
cept such  as  substitute  for  them  propositions  of  a  wholly  dif- 
ferent character.  Those  clauses  proceed  on  a  false  notion, 
which  I  have*  elsewhere  noticed,  that  the  importance  of  all 
opinions  touching  God's  nature  is  to  be  measured  by  his 
greatness ;  and  that  therefore  erroneous  notions  about  the 
Trinity  are  worse  than  erroneous  notions  about  Church  gov- 
ernment or  pious  frauds,  or  any  other  disputed  point  on  which 
there  is  a  right  and  a  wrong,  a  true  and  a  false,  and  on  which 
the  wrong  and  the  false  may  indeed  be  highly  sinful ;  but  it 
does  not  follow  that  they  must  be ;  and  their  sinfulness  does 
not  depend  upon  their  wrongness  and  falsehood,  but  on  other 
circumstances  in  the  particular  mind  of  the  person  holding 
them.  But  I  read  the  Athanasian  Creed,  and  have  and 
would  again  subscribe  the  Article  about  it,  because  I  do  not 
conceive  the  clauses  in  question  to  be  essential  parts  of  it,  or 
that  they  were  retained  deliberately  by  our  Reformers  after 
the  propriety  of  retaining  or  expunging  them  had  been  dis- 
tinctly submitted  to  their  minds.  They  retained  the  Creed, 
I  doubt  not,  deliberately ;  to  show  that  they  wished  to  keep 
the  faith  of  the  general  Church  in  matters  relating  to  the 
Arian,  Macedonian,  Nestorian,  Eutychian,  and  Socinian  con- 
troversies ;  and  as  they  did  not  scruple  to  burn  Arians,  so 
neither  would  they  be  likely  to  be  shocked  by  the  damnatory 
clauses  against  them  ;  but  I  do  not  imagine  that  the  Article 
about  the  Creed  was  intended  in  the  least  to  refer  to  the 
clauses,  as  if  they  supposed  that  a  man  might  embrace  the 
rest  of  the  Creed,  and  yet  reject  them.  Nor  do  I  think  that 
the  Reformers,  or  the  best  and  wisest  men  of  the  Church 
since,  would  have  objected  to  any  man's  subscription,  if  they 
had  conceived  such  a  case ;  but  would  have  said,  "  What  we 

*  Postscript  to  "  Principles  of  Church  Reform,"  p.  9.    For  the  limitation 
to  this  statement,  see,  amongst  other  passages,  Sermons,  vol.  iii.  p.  140. 


118  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

mean  you  to  embrace  is  the  belief  of  the  general  Church,  as 
expressed  in  the  Three  Creeds,  with  regard  to  the  points,  — 
many  of  them  having  been  much  disputed,  —  on  which  those 
Creeds  pronounce ;  —  the  degree  of  blnmableness  in  tho.*e 
who  do  not  embrace  this  belief  is  another  matter,  on  which 
we  do  not  intend  to  speak  particularly  in  this  Article."  I  do 
not  think  that  there  is  anything  evasive  or  unfair  in  this.  I 
do  not  think  that  it  even  requires  in  its  defence,  —  what  is 
yet  most  true,  —  that  Church  subscriptions  mtist  be  taken  in 
their  widest  rather  than  in  their  strictest  sense,  except  on 
points  where  they  were  especially  intended  to  be  stringent, 
and  to  express  the  opposite  of  some  suspected  opinion.  Yet, 
when  you  speak  of  others  throwing  your  subscription  in  your 
teeth,  you  may  surely  say  that  it  does  indeed  require  the  ut- 
most laxity  of  interpretation  to  reconcile  Newmanism  with  a 
subscription  to  our  Articles,  because  there,  on  points  especially 
disputed,  such  as  the  Authority  of  Tradition,  and  the  King's 
Supremacy,  the  Church  of  England  and  the  Newmanites  are 
directly  at  variance.  As  far  as  Keble  or  Newman  are  con- 
cerned, the  most  decided  Socinian  might  subscribe  the  Arti- 
cles as  consistently  as  they  do  ;  but  this  of  course  is  not  the 
point,  and  my  opinion  as  to  the  damnatory  clauses,  as  it  is 
much  older  than  the  rise  of  Newmanism,  so  it  stands  on 
grounds  far  different  from  a  mere  argumentum  ad  hominem, 
and  is,  I  think,  perfectly  right,  considered  simply  on  the 
merits  of  the  case. 

When  the  faults  of  the  London  University  revive 

all  my  tenderness  for  Oxford,  then  the  faults  of  Oxford  repel 
me  again,  and  make  it  impossible  to  sympathize  with  a  spirit 
so  uncongenial.  Wherefore  I  wish  the  wish  of  Achilles,  when 
he  looked  out  upon  the  battle  of  the  ships  and  desired  that  the 
Greeks  and  Trojans  might  destroy  one  another,  and  leave  the 
field  open  for  better  men. 

We  had  a  very  prosperous  journey,  and  arrived  here 
yesterday  evening  about  nine  o'clock.  The  place  is  most 
beautiful ;  but  the  rain  is  falling  thick. 

CLXXXIII.      TO    T.    F.    ELLIS,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  August  29,  1838. 

Independently  of  the  real  pleasure  which  it  would  give  me 
to  be  of  any  service  to  a  friend  of  yours,  I  have  that  admira- 
tion of  Mr.  Macaulay's  writings,  and  have  derived  so  much 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  119 

pleasure  from  them,  that  it  would  be  but  a  matter  of  simple 
gratitude  to  do  anything  in  my  power  towards  facilitating  his 
observations  during  his  stay  at  Rome.  I  was  there  myself 
so  very  short  a  time,  that  I  was  able  only  to  look  at  the  mere 
outline  of  things  ;  and  it  was  my  object  to  go  to  as  many  of 
the  higher  points  as  I  could,  in  and  about  Rome,  that  by 
getting  the  landscape  from  a  number  of  different  points  I 
might  better  understand  the  bearings  of  its  several  parts 
towards  one  another.  For  instance,  I  went  to  the  top  of  the 
dome  of  St.  Peter's ;  to  that  of  the  tower  of  the  Capitol ;  to 
the  Monte  Mario  ;  the  terrace  of  the  Church  of  St.  Pietro  in 
Montorio,  (on  the  old  Janiculum,)  that  of  the  Convent  of  St. 
Gregorio,  I  think  it  is,  on  the  Coelian,  (from  which  you  look 
upon  the  reverse  of  the  Esquiline,  just  at  the  place  where  the 
street  of  the  Carinaa  ran  along,)  to  the  old  mound  of  Ser. 
Tullius ;  to  the  summits  of  the  Aventine  and  Palatine,  &c. ; 
by  which  I  always  fancy  that  I  have  retained  a  more  distinct, 
and  also  a  more  lively  and  picturesque  image  of  Rome  than  I 
could  otherwise  have  gained  within  the  same  space  of  time ; 
and  if  I  were  to  go  again,  I  think  I  should  do  the  same  thing. 
Out  of  Rome  I  should  recommend,  as  near  objects,  Tivoli,  of 
course,  and  the  Alban  hills,  and  especially  Palestrina  (Prae- 
neste).  If  I  could  get  there  again,  I  should  wish  especially 
to  take  the  upper  road  from  Rome  to  Naples,  by  Palestrina, 
Anagni,  Frosinone,  and  the  valley  of  the  Garigliano.  This 
is  every  way  a  most  interesting  line,  and  it  might  easily 
include  Arpino.  I  am  not  sure  where  you  would  best  come  out 
upon  the  plain  of  Naples.  I  should  try  to  get  by  S.  Ger  • 
mano  and  Monte  Cassino,  in  the  great  road  from  Naples, 
across  to  the  Adriatic  ;  and  so  to  descend  by  the  Valley  of  the 
Voltorno,  either  upon  Capua,  or  straight  by  Carazzo  and 
Caserta. 

Much  must  depend  on  the  state  of  the  banditti,  which  is 
always  known  on  the  spot.  If  they  are  well  put  down,  as  I 
believe  they  are,  the  upland  valleys  in  the  central  Apennines 
are  most  attractive.  I  had  a  plan  once  of  turning  off  from 
the  great  road  at  Terni,  then  ascending  the  valley  of  the 
Velino  to  Rieti,  and  making  my  way  through  what  they  call 
me  Cicolano,  —  the  country  of  the  Aborigines  of  Cato  —  down 
upon  Alba  and  the  Lake  Fucinus ;  from  thence  you  can  go 
either  to  Rome  or  Naples,  as  you  like.  The  neighborhood 
of  Alba  is  doubly  interesting,  as  it  is  close  by  the  field  of 
Scurzola,  the  scene  of  Conradin's  defeat  by  Charles  of  Anjou. 


120  LIFE  OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

In  Etruria  I  would  make  any  efforts  to  get  to  Voltera,  which 
is  accessible  enough,  either  from  Leghorn  or  from  Sienna. 
If  Mr.  Macaulay  is  going  into  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  he  will 
find  Keppel  Craven's  recent  book,  "  Travels  in  the  Abruzzi," 
&c.,  exceedingly  useful,  —  as  a  regular  guide,  I  have  not  met 
with  a  better  book.  Does  he  know  WestphaPs  book  on  the 
Campagna?  lengthy,  but  full  of  details,  which  are  carefully 
done. 

CLXXXIV.      TO    THE    REV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

(Two  letters,  as  being  closely  connected  with  each  other,  are  here  joined.) 

(A.)  Fox  How,  August  6, 1838. 

Just  before  the  holidays,  I  had  a  letter  from  Card- 
well,  in  which  he  mentioned  that  there  was  some  scheme  for 
enlarging  the  sphere  of  the  Degree  Examination.  I  should 
rejoice  at  this,  but  I  more  desire  your  old  plan  of  an  Exam- 
ination at  entrance,  which  would  be  so  great  a  benefit  at  once 
to  you  and  to  us.  With  regard  to  the  Examinations,  I  hear  a 
general  complaint  of  the  variableness  of  the  standard ;  that 
new  Examiners  lay  the  main  stress  on  the  most  different  things ; 
with  some  Scholarship  is  everything,  with  others  History, 
with  others  the  Aristotle,  &c.  Now  it  is  a  very  good  thing 
that  all  these  should  have  their  turn,  and  should  all  be  insisted 
upon ;  but  I  think  that  some  notice  should  be  given  before- 
hand, and  that  a  new  Examiner  should  state,  like  the  Praetors 
at  Borne,  what  points  he  intended  particularly  to  require :  for 
at  present,  the  men  say  that  they  are  often  led  to  attend  to 
one  thing,  from  the  experience  of  the  last  Examination,  and 
then  a  new  Examiner  attaches  the  greatest  importance  to 

something  else. 

(B.) 

I  hear  that  you  are  thinking  of  extending  the 

range  of  your  Examinations  at  Oxford,  at  which  I  wish  you 
all  manner  of  success.  I  do  not  think  that  you  need  in  the 
least  to  raise  the  standard  of  your  classes,  but  a  pass  little  go, 
or  even  great  go,  is  surely  a  ridiculous  thing,  as  all  that  the 
University  expects  of  a  man  after  some  twelve  or  fourteen 
years  of  schooling  and  lecturing.  I  think,  too,  that  physical 
science  can  nowhere  be  so  well  studied  as  at  Oxford,  because 
the  whole  spirit  of  the  place  is  against  its  undue  ascendency  ; 
for  instance,  Anatomy,  which  in  London  is  dangerously,  as  I 
think,  made  one  of  the  qualifications  for  a  degree,  might  be,  J 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  121 

imagine,  profitably  required  at  Oxford,  where  you  need  not 
dread  the  low  morals  and  manners  of  so  many  of  the  common 

medical  students 

I  have  read  Froude's  volume,*  and  I  think  that  its  pre- 
dominant character  is  extraordinary  impudence.  I  never  saw 
a  more  remarkable  instance  of  that  quality  than  the  way  in 
which  he,  a  young  man,  and  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of 
England,  reviles  all  those  persons  whom  the  accordant  voice 
of  that  Church,  without  distinction  of  party,  has  agreed  to 
honor,  even  perhaps  with  an  excess  of  admiration. 

CLXXXV.       tTO    THE    REV-    w'    K-    HAMILTON. 

Rugby,  October  5,  1838. 

Will  you  thank  "Wordsworth  for  his  specimen  of  his  Gram- 
mar when  you  write  to  him  ?  I  am  glad  that  he  writes  it  in 
Latin,  being  fully  convinced  that  an  English  Grammar  will 
never  be  remembered  with  equal  tenacity. 

You  are  indeed  too  much  of  a  stranger  to  us,  and  it  would 
delight  us  to  see  you  here  again,  or  still  more  to  see  you  in 
Westmoreland.  But  I  know  the  claims  of  your  parish  upon 
your  time ;  as  well  as  those  of  your  relations.  Only,  when- 
ever you  can  come  to  us,  let  me  beg  that  you  will  not  let  slip 
the  opportunity 

There  seems  to  me  to  be  a  sort  of  atmosphere  of 

unrest  and  paradox  hanging  around  many  of  our  ablest  young 
men  of  the  present  day,  which  makes  me  very  uneasy.  I  do 
not  speak  of  religious  doubts,  but  rather  of  questions  as  to 
great  points  in  moral  and  intellectual  matters ;  where  things 
which  have  been  settled  for  centuries  seem  to  be  again  brought 
into  discussion.  This  restless  love  of  paradox,  is,  I  believe, 
one  of  the  main  causes  of  the  growth  of  Newmanism ;  first, 
directly,  as  it  leads  men  to  dispute  and  oppose  all  the  points 
which  have  been  agreed  upon  in  their  own  country  for  the 
last  two  hundred  years ;  and  to  pick  holes  in  existing  reputa- 
tions ;  and  then,  when  a  man  gets  startled  at  the  excess  of 
his  scepticism,  and  finds  that  he  is  cutting  away  all  the 
ground  under  his  feet,  he  takes  a  desperate  leap  into  a  blind 
fanaticism.  I  cannot  find  what  I  most  crave  to  see,  and  what 
still  seems  to  me  no  impossible  dream,  inquiry  and  belief 


*  That  is,  the  first  volume  of  the  first  part  of  Froude's  Remains.    The  other 
three  volumes  he  had  not  read. 

VOL.  II.  11 


122  LIFE  OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

going  together,  and  the  adherence  to  truth  growing  with  in- 
creased affection,  as  follies  are  more  and  more  cast  away. 

But  I  have  seen  lately  such  a  specimen  of  this,  and  of  all 
other  things,  that  are  good  and  wise  and  holy,  as  I  suppose 
can  scarcely  be  matched  again  in  the  world.  Bunsen  has 
been  with  us  for  six  days,  with  his  wife  and  Henry.  It  was 
delightful  to  find  that  my  impression  of  his  extraordinary 
excellence  had  not  deceived  me;  that  the  reality  even  sur- 
passed my  recollection  of  what  he  was  eleven  years  ago. 

CLXXXVI.   TO  THE  EARL  OP  BURLINGTON. 

(Chancellor  of  the  University  of  London.) 

Rugby,  November  7, 1838. 

It  is  with  the  greatest  regret  that,  after  the  fullest  and  fair- 
est deliberation  which  I  have  been  able  to  give  to.  the  subject. 
I  feel  myself  obliged  to  resign  my  Fellowship  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  London. 

The  Constitution  of  the  University  seems  now  to  be  fixed,, 
and  it  has  either  begun  to  work,  or  will  soon  do  so.  After  the 
full  discussion  given  to  the  question,  on  which  I  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  differ  from  the  majority  of  the  Senate,  I  felt  that 
it  would  be  unbecoming  to  agitate  the  matter  again,  and  it 
only  remained  for  me  to  consider  whether  the  institution  of  a, 
voluntary  Examination  in  Theology  would  satisfy,  either  prac- 
tically or  in  theory,  those  principles  which  appeared  to  me  to- 
be  indispensable. 

I  did  not  wish  to  decide  this  point  hastily,  but  after  the 
fullest  consideration  and  inquiry  I  am  led  to  the  conclusion, 
that  the  voluntary  Examination  will  not  be  satisfactory.  Prac- 
tically I  fear  it  will  not,  because  the  members  of  King's  Col- 
lege will  not  be  encouraged  by  their  own  authorities,  so  far  as 
I  can  learn,  to  subject  themselves  to  it ;  and  the  members  of 
University  College  may  be  supposed,  according  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  their  own  society,  to  be  averse  to  it  altogether.  But, 
even  if  it  were  to  answer  practically  better  than  I  fear  it  will 
do,  still  it  does  not  satisfy  the  great  principle  that  Christian- 
ity should  be  the  base  of  all  public  education  in  this  country. 
Whereas  with  us  it  would  be  no  essential  part  of  one  system, 
but  merely  a  branch  of  knowledge  which  any  man  might  pur- 
sue if  he  liked,  but  which  he  might  also,  if  he  liked,  wholly 
neglect,  without  forfeiting  his  claim,  according  to  our  estimate, 
to  the  title  of  a  completely  educated  man. 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  123 

And  further,  as  it  appeared,  I  think,  to  the  majority  of  the 
Senate,  that  the  terms  of  our  Charter  positively  forbade  that 
which  in  my  judgment  is  indispensable ;  and  as  there  is  a 
painfulness  in  even  appearing  to  dispute  the  very  law  under 
which  our  University  exists ;  there  seems  to  me  an  additional 
reason  why,  disapproving  as  I  do  very  strongly  of  that  which 
is  held  to  be  the  main  principle  of  our  Charter,  I  should  with- 
draw myself  from  the  University  altogether. 

I  trust  that  I  need  not  assure  your  Lordship  or  the  Senate, 
that  I  am  resigning  my  Fellowship  from  no  factious  or  disap- 
pointed feeling,  or  from  any  personal  motives  whatever. 
Most  sincerely  shall  I  rejoice  if  the  University  does  in  prac- 
tice promote  the  great  interests  to  which  the  principle  appears 
to  me  to  be  injurious.  Most  glad  shall  I  be  if  those  whose 
affection  to  those  interests  is,  I  well  know,  quite  as  sincere 
and  lively  as  mine,  shall  be  found  to  have  judged  of  their 
danger  more  truly  as  well  as  more  favorably. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

LIFE   AND   CORRESPONDENCE,   NOVEMBER,   1838,   TO   SEP- 
TEMBER,   1841. 

IT  is  impossible  to  mistake  the  change  which  once 
more  passed  over  his  state  of  mind  during  these  last 
years  of  his  life  —  the  return,  though  in  a  more  chas- 
tened form,  of  the  youthful  energy  and  serenity  of  the 
earlier  part  of  his  career  at  Rugby  —  the  Martinmas 
summer  succeeding  to  the  dreary  storms  with  which  he 
had  been  so  long  encompassed  ;  and  reoalling  the  more 
genial  season,  which  had  preceded  them,  yet  mellowed 
and  refined  by  the  experience  of  the  intervening  period. 

His  whole  constitution  seemed  to  have  received  a  new 
spring.  "  The  interest  of  life,"  to  use  his  own  descrip- 
tion of  middle  age,*  "  which  had  begun  to  fade  for  him- 

*  Sermons,  vol.  iv.  p.  116. 


124  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

self,  revived  with  vigor  in  behalf  of  his  children."  The 
education  of  his  own  sons  in  the  school,  —  his  firmer 
hold  of  the  reins  of  government,  —  his  greater  famil- 
iarity with  the  whole  machinery  of  the  place,  —  the  in- 
creasing circle  of  pupils  at  the  Universities,  who  looked 
upon  him  as  their  second  father ;  —  even  the  additional 
bodily  health  which  he  gained  by  resuming  in  1838  his 
summer  tours  on  the  continent,  —  removed  that  sense 
of  weariness  by  which  he  had  been  at  times  oppressed 
amidst  his  heavy  occupations,  and  bound  him  to^iis 
work  at  Rugby  with  a  closer  tie  than  ever. 

But  it  was  not  only  in  his  ordinary  work  that  a  new 
influence  seemed  to  act  upon  him  in  the  determination 
which  he  formed  to  dwell  on  those  positive  truths  on 
which  he  agreed  with  others,  rather  than  to  be  always 
acting  on  the  defensive  or  offensive. 

To  this  various  causes  had  contributed,  —  the  weari- 
ness of  the  contest  of  the  last  four  years, —  the  isolation 
in  which  he  found  himself  placed  after  his  failure  in  the 
London  University,  —  the  personal  intercourse,  now, 
after  an  interval  of  eleven  years,  renewed  with  his  friend 
the  Chevalier  Bunsen,  —  the  recoil,  which  he  felt  from 
the  sceptical  tone  of  mind  which  struck  him  as  being  at 
once  the  cause  and  effect  of  the  new  school  of  Oxford 
Theology.  It  was  in  this  spirit  that  he  struck  out  all 
the  political  allusions  of  his  notes  on  Thucydides,  which 
were  now  passing  through  a  second  edition,  "  not,"  he 
said, "  as  abhorring  the  evils  against  which  they  were  di- 
rected, less  now  than  I  did  formerly,  but  because  we 
have  been  all  of  us  taught  by  the  lessons  of  the  last  nine 
years,  that,  in  political  matters  more  especially,  moder- 
ation and  comprehensiveness  of  views  are  the  greatest 
wisdom."  *  So,  again,  in  the  hope  of  giving  a  safbr  and 
more  sober  direction  to  the  excitement  then  prevailing 
in  the  country  on  the  subject  of  National  Education,  he 


*  The  whole  passage  in  which  this  occurs  (noticing  a  severe  attack  upom 
him,  introduced  into  an  article  in  the  Quarterly  Keview  by  "a  writer  for 
whom  he  entertained  a  very  sincere  respect")  well  illustrates  his  feeling  at 
this  time.  (Note  on  Thucyd.  ii.  40,  2d  ed.) 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  125 

published  a  Lecture  delivered  in  1838  before  the  Me- 
chanics' Institute  at  Rugby,  on  the  Divisions  of  Knowl- 
edge ;  "  feeling  that  while  it  was  desirable  on  the  one 
hand  to  encourage  Mechanics'  Institutes  011  account  of 
the  good  which  they  can  do,  it  was  no  less  important  to 
call  attention  to  their  necessary  imperfections,  and  to 
notice  that  great  good  which  they  cannot  do."  His 
"  Two  Sermons  on  Prophecy,  with  Notes,"  which  were 
published  in  the  same  year,  and  which  form  the  most 
complete  and  systematic  of  any  of  his  fragments  on  Ex- 
egetical  Theology,  he  regarded  as  a  kind  of  peace-offer- 
ing, "  in  which  it  was  his  earnest  desire  to  avoid  as 
much  as  possible  all  such  questions  as  might  engender 
strife,  — that  is  to  say,  such  as  are  connected  with  the 
peculiar  opinions  of  any  of  the  various  parties  existing 
within  the  Church."  And  it  must  have  been  a  pleas- 
ure to  him  to  witness  the  gradual  softening  of  public 
feeling  towards  himself,  not  the  least  perhaps  in  that 
peaceful  visit  of  one  day  to  Oxford,  to  see  his  friends 
the  Chevalier  Bunsen  and  the  aged  Poet  Wordsworth 
receive  their  degrees  at  the  commemoration  of  1839, 
when  he  also  had  the  opportunity  of  renewing  friendly 
connections,  which  the  late  unhappy  divisions  had  in- 
terrupted. 

His  wish  for  a  closer  sympathy  and  union  of  efforts 
amongst  all  good  men  was  further  increased,  when,  in 
1839  —  40,  his  attention  was  again  called  to  the  social 
evils  of  the  country,  as  betraying  themselves  in  the  dis- 
turbances of  Chartism,  and  the  alarm  which  had  pos- 
sessed him  in  1831-32  returned,  though  in  a  more 
chastened  form,  never  to  leave  him.  "  It  haunts  me," 
he  said,  "I  may  almost  say  night  and  day  It  fills  me 
with  astonishment  to  see  antislavery  and  missionary  so- 
cieties so  busy  with  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  yet  all 
the  worst  evils  of  slavery  and  of  heathenism  are  exist- 
ing amongst  ourselves.  But  no  man  seems  so  gifted, 
or  to  speak  more  properly,  so  endowed  by  God,  with 
the  spirit  of  wisdom,  as  to  read  this  fearful  riddle  truly  ; 
which  most  Sphinx-like,  if  not  read  truly,  will  most 
ii* 


126  LIFE  OF  DB.  ARNOLD. 

surely  be  the  destruction  of  us  all."  To  awaken  the 
higher  orders  to  the  full  extent  of  the  evil,  was  accord- 
ingly his  chief  practical  aim,  whether  in  the  Letters 
which  he  addressed  to  the  "  Hertford  Reformer,"  or  in 
his  attempts  to  organize  a  Society  for  that  purpose,  as 
described  in  the  ensuing  correspondence.  "  My  fear 
with  regard  to  every  remedy  that  involves  any  sacrifices 
to  the  upper  classes,  is,  that  the  public  mind  is  not  yet 
enough  aware  of  the  magnitude  of  the  evil  to  submit  to 
them.  '  Knowest  thou  not  yet  that  Egypt  is  destroyed,' 
was  the  question  put  to  Pharaoh  by  his  counsellors ;  for 
unless  he  did  know  it,  they  were  aware  that  he  would 
not  let  Israel  go  from  serving  him." 

Most  of  all  were  these  feelings  exemplified  in  his 
desire,  now  more  strong  than  ever,  for  the  revival  of 
what  he  believed  to  be  the  true  idea  of  the  Church. 
"  I  am  continually  vexed,"  he  writes  in  1840,  "  at  be- 
ing supposed  to  be  a  maintainer  of  negatives  —  an 
enemy  to  other  systems  or  theories,  with  no  positive 
end  of  my  own.  I  have  told  you  how  it  wearies  me 
to  be  merely  opposing  Newmanism,  or  this  thing  or 
that  thing ;  we  want  an  actual  truth,  and  an  actual 
good.  I  wish  to  deliver  myself,  if  I  can,  of  my  posi- 
tive notions, — to  state  that  for  which  I  long  so  eagerly ; 
that  glorious  Church  which  Antichrists  of  all  sorts  hate, 
and  are  destroying.  If  any  one  would  join  me  in  this, 
I  should  rejoice  ;  many  more,  I  feel  sure,  would  agree 
with  me,  if  they  saw  that  the  truth  was  not  destructive 
nor  negative,  but  most  constructive,  most  positive." 
His  desire  for  removing  any  particular  grievances  in 
the  ecclesiastical  system  was  proportionably  diminished. 
The  evil  to  be  abated,  the  good  to  be  accomplished, 
appeared  to  him  beyond  the  reach  of  any  single  meas- 
ure ;  and  though  in  1840  he  signed  a  Petition  for 
alteration  in  the  subscription  to  the  Liturgy  and  Arti- 
cles, yet  it  had  so  little  bearing  on  his  general  views  as 
not  to  be  worth  mention  here,  except  for  the  purpose 
of  explaining  any  misapprehension  of  his  doing  so. 
It  was  planned  and  drawn  up  entirely  without  his  par- 


LIFE    OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  127 

ticipation,  and  was  only  brought  to  his  notice  by  the 
accident  of  two  of  the  principal  movers  being  personal 
friends  of  his  own.  Whatever  scruples  *  he  had  once 
had  on  the  subject,  had  been  long  since  set  at  rest  ; 
and  it  was  merely  from  his  unwillingness  to  let  others 
bear  alone  what  he  conceived  to  be  an  unjust  odium, 
that  he  joined  in  a  measure,  from  which  he  would  at 
this  period  have  been  naturally  repelled,  both  by  his 
desire  to  allay  those  suspicions  against  him  which  he 
was  now  so  anxious  to  remove,  and  by  his  conviction 
that  the  objects  which  he  most  wished  to  attain  lay 
entirely  in  another  direction. 

But  in  proportion  to  the  strength  of  his  belief  that 
these  objects,  whether  social  or  religious,  lay  beyond 
the  reach  of  any  single  measure,  or  of  any  individual 
efforts,  was  the  deep  melancholy  which  possessed  him, 
when  he  felt  the  manifold  obstacles  to  their  accomplish- 
ment. His  favorite  expression  ex&'o-nj  68vvr)  TroXXa  <£poi/e- 
p  ^hos  KpaTfew,  —  "the  bitterest  of  all  griefs,  to 


*  This  seems  the  fittest  place  for  noticing  a  previous  passage  in  his  life, 
connected  with  the  subject  of  subscription.  The  graver  difficulties,  which 
Mr.  Justice  Coleridge  has  noticed  as  attending  his  first  Ordination,  never 
returned  after  the  year  1820,  when  he  seems  to  have  arrived  at  a  complete 
conviction  both  of  his  conscience  and  understanding,  that  there  was  no  real 
ground  for  entertaining  them.  The  morbid  state  of  mind  into  which  he  was 
thrown,  from  various  causes,  at  his  entrance  on  life,  makes  it  difficult  to 
ascertain  the  exact  nature  of  these  doubts,  or  the  exact  view  which  he  took 
of  them  himself:  but  the  recollection  of  those  friends  who  best  remember 
him  at  the  time  just  specified,  warrants  the  conclusion  that,  whatever  they 
were,  he  was  ultimately  freed  from  them  by  the  joint  effect  of  a  healthier 
frame  of  mind,  when  he  had  entered  on  practical  life,  and  of  the  conviction 
that  the  view  which  he  eventually  adopted  was  less  encumbered  with  diffi- 
culties than  any  other.  It  was  on  wholly  distinct  grounds  that,  during  the 
inquiries  which  he  prosecuted  at  Laleham,  there  arose  in  his  mind  scruples 

time  to 
rolve  a 


to  my  own  difference,  except  that,  however  trifling  be  the  point,  and  how- 
ever gladly  I  would  waive  it  altogether,  still,  when  I  am  required  to  acqui- 
esce in  what  I  think  a  wrong  opinion  upon  it,  I  must  decline  compliance." 
On  these  grounds  he  long  hesitated  to  take  Priest's  Orders,  at  least  unless 
he  had  the  opportunity  of  explaining  his  objections  to  the  Bishop  who  or- 
dained him :  and  it  was  in  fact  on  this  condition  that,  after  his  appointment 
to  Rugby,  while  still  in  Deacon's  orders,  he  consented  to  be  ordained  by  the 
Bishop  of  his  diocese,  at  that  time  Dr.  Howley ;  as  appears  from  the  follow- 
ing extracts  from  letters,  of  which  the  first  states  his  intention  with  regard 
to  another  situation  in  1826,  which  he  fulfilled  in  1828,  in  the  interval  be- 


128  LIFE   OF  DR.    ARNOLD. 

see  clearly  and  yet  to  be  able  to  do  nothing," — might 
stand  as  the  motto  of  his  whole  mind,  as  often  before 
in  his  life,  so  most  emphatically  now.  The  Sermon 
on  "  Christ's  Three  Comings,"  in  the  fifth  volume, 
preached  in  1889,  truly  expresses  his  sense  of  the  state 
of  public  affairs  ;  —  and  in  looking  at  the  general 
aspect  of  the  religious  world,  "  When  I  think  of  the 
Church,"  he  wrote  in  1839,"!  could  sit  down  and 
pine  and  die."  And  it  is  remarkable  to  observe  the 
contrast  between  the  joyous  tone  of  his  sermons  on 
Easter  Day,  as  the  birthday  of  Christ's  Religion,  and 
the  tone  of  subdued  and  earnest  regret  which  marks 
those  on  Whit  Sunday,  as  the  birthday  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church :  —  "  Easter  Day  we  keep  as  the  birthday 
of  a  living  friend  :  Whit  Sunday  we  keep  as  the  birth- 
day of  a  dead  friend." 

Of  these  general  views  the  fourth  volume  of  Ser- 
mons, entitled  "  Christian  Life,  its  Course,  its  Helps, 
and  its  Hindrances,"  published  in  May,  1841,  is  the 


tween  his  election  at  Rugby  and  his  entrance  upon  his  office.  1.  "  As  my 
objections  turn  on  points  which  all,  I  believe,  would  consider  immaterial  in 
themselves,  I  would  consent  to  be  ordained,  if  any  Bishop  would  ordain  me 
on  an  explicit  statement  of  my  disagreement  on  those  points.  If  he  would 
not,  then  my  course  would  be  plain;  and  there  would  be  an  end  of  all 
thought  of  it  at  once."  2.  "  I  shall,  I  believe,  be  ordained  Priest  on  Trinity 
Sunday,  being  ordained  by  the  Bishop  of  London.  I  wished  to  do  this,  be- 
cause 1  wished  to  administer  the  Sacrament  in  the  chapel  at  Rugby.  :md 
because,  as  I  shall  have  in  a  manner  the  oversight  of  the  chaplain.  I  thought 
it  would  be  scarce  seemly  for  me,  as  a  Deacon,  to  interfere  with  a  Priest; 
and  after  a  long  conversation  with  the  Bishop  of  London,  I  do  not  object  to 
be  ordained." 

This  was  the  last  time  that  he  was  troubled  with  any  similar  perplexities; 
and  in  later  vears,  as  appears  from  more  than  one  letter  of  this  period,  he 
thought  that  he  had,  in  his  earlier  life,  overrated  the  difficulties  of  subscrip- 
tion. The  particular  subject  of  his  scruples  arose  from  his  doubt,  founded 
chiefly  on  internal  evidence,  whether  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  did  not 
belong  to  a  period  subsequent  to  the  Apostolical  age.  It  may  be  worth 
while  to  mention,  that  this  doubt  was  eventually  removed  by  an  increased 
study  of  the  Scriptures  and  of  the  early  Christian  writers.  In  the  ten  last 
years  of  his  life  ne  never  hesitated  to  use  and  apply  it  as  one  of  the  most 
valuable  parts  of  the  New  Testament:  and  his  latest  opinion  was  inclining 
to  the  belief  that  it  might  have  been  written,  not  merely  under  the  guidance 
of  St.  Paul,  but  by  the  Apostle  himself.  The  only  other  difficulty,  at  this 
time,  to  which,  however,  he  attached  less  importance,  and  which  did  not 
practically  affect  him  in  his  situation  as  Head-master,  was  the  indiscrimi- 
nate use  of  the  Baptismal  and  Burial  Services.  On  this  point  also  his  later 
opinion  is  expressed  in  Serm.  iv.  391. 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  129 

most  complete  expression.  It  is  true,  indeed,  that  in 
parts  of  it  the  calmer  tone  of  the  last  few  years  is  dis- 
turbed by  a  revival  of  the  more  polemical  spirit,  which, 
in  the  close  of  1840  and  the  beginning  of  1841,  was 
again  roused  against  the  Oxford  school  of  Theology. 
That  school  had  in  the  interval  made  a  rapid  progress, 
and  in  some  important  points  totally  changed  its  origi- 
nal aspect ;  many  of  those  who  had  at  first  welcomed 
it  with  joy,  were  now  receding  from  it  in  dismay ; 
many  of  those  who  had  at  first  looked  upon  it  with  con- 
tempt and  repugnance,  were  now  become  its  most 
active  adherents.  But  he  was  not  a  man  whose  first 
impressions  were  easily  worn  off:  and  his  feelings 
against  it,  though  expressed  in  a  somewhat  different 
form,  were  not  materially  altered ;  he  found  new 
grounds  of  offence  in  the  place  of  old  ones  that  were 
passing  away ;  and  the  Introduction  to  this  volume,  — 
written  at  a  time  when  his  indignation  had  been  re- 
cently roused  by  what  appeared  to  him  the  sophistry 
of  the  celebrated  Tract  90,  and  when  the  public  ex- 
citement on  this  question  had  reached  its  highest  pitch, 
— contains  his  final  and  deliberate  protest  against  what 
he  regarded  as  the  fundamental  errors  of  the  system. 

Yet  even  in  this,  he  brought  out  more  strongly  than 
ever  the  positive  grounds  on  which  he  felt  himself 
called  upon  to  oppose  it.  "  It  is  because  my  whole 
mind  and  soul  repose  with  intense  satisfaction  on  the 
truths  taught  by  St.  John  and  St.  Paul,  that  I  abhor 
the  Judaism  of  the  Newmanites,  —  it  is  because  I  so 
earnestly  desire  the  revival  of  the  Church  that  I  abhor 
the  doctrine  of  the  priesthood."  And  this  volume,  as 
a  whole,  when  taken  with  the  one  which  has  been 
already  noticed  as  preceding  it  a  few  years  before,  may 
be  said  to  give  his  full  view  of  Christianity  in  its  action, 
—  not  on  individuals,  as  in  the  first  volume,  or  on 
schools,  as  in  the  second,  —  but  on  the  world  at  large. 
But  whereas  the  Sermons  selected  from  the  ordinary 
course  of  his  preaching,  in  the  third  volume,  speak 
rather  of  the  Christian  Revelation  in  itself,  —  of  its 


130  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

truths,  its  evidences,  and  its  ultimate  objects,  —  so  the 
fourth,  as  its  title  expresses,  was  intended  to  convey 
the  feeling  so  strongly  impressed  on  his  mind  during 
this  last  period,  that  these  objects  would  be  best  at- 
tained by  a  full  development  of  the  Church  or  Chris- 
tian society,  whether  in  schools,  in  parishes,  or  in 
States. 

CLXXXVII.       TO    THE    REV.   J.    HEARN. 

Rugby,  November  23, 1838. 

It  would  be  a  great  shame  if  I  were  to  put  off  writing  to 
you  till  the  holidays,  and  especially  after  the  long  and  kind 
letter  which  I  have  received  from  you.  I  was  purposing  to 
write  long  ago,  and  to  return  both  to  you  and  Mrs.  Hearn  my 
wife's  and  my  own  sincere  thanks  for  your  kind  hospitality  to 
us  at  Hatford,  and  to  assure  you  that  we  both  enjoyed  our 
visit  exceedingly,  and  have  often  since  recalled  it  to  our  mem- 
ories ;  sometimes,  I  fear,  with  almost  a  disposition  to  envy 
you  the  peacefulness  and  the  comfort  of  your  very  delightful 
Parsonage ;  the  image  of  which,  as  I  knew  it  would,  has 
haunted  me  at  times  almost  painfully,  like  the  phantoms  of 
green  fields,  which  visit  the  sailor  when  he  is  attacked  with 
sickness  far  out  at  sea.  When  one  is  well,  there  is  a  kindling 
pleasure  in  being  borne  rapidly  over  the  great  sea,  and  living 
in  all  the  stir  of  the  great  highway  of  nations.  But  when 
health  fails,  then  what  before  was  pleasantly  exciting  becomes 
harassing,  and  one  indulges  in  a  fond  craving  for  rest.  Here, 
thank  God,  I  have  not  suffered  from  failing  health,  but  I  have 
been  much  annoyed  with  the  moral  evils  which  have  come  un- 
der my  notice ;  and  then  a  great  school  is  very  trying.  It  never 
can  present  images  of  rest  and  peace ;  and  when  the  spring 
and  activity  of  youth  is  altogether  unsanctified  by  anything 
pure  and  elevated  in  its  desires,  it  becomes  a  spectacle  that  is 
as  dizzying  and  almost  more  morally  distressing  than  the 
shouts  and  gambols  of  a  set  of  lunatics.  It  is  very  startling 
to  see  so  much  of  sin  combined  with  so  little  of  sorrow.  In 
a  parish,  amongst  the  poor,  whatever  of  sin  exists,  there  is 
sure  also  to  be  enough  of  suffering ;  poverty,  sickness,  and 
old  age  are  mighty  tamers  and  chastisers.  But  with  boys  of 
the  richer  classes,  one  sees  nothing  but  plenty,  health,  and 
youth ;  and  these  are  really  awful  to  behold,  when  one  must 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  131 

feel  that  they  are  unblessed.  On  the  other  hand,  few  things 
are  more  beautiful,  than  when  one  does  see  all  holy  and  noble 
thoughts  and  principles,  not  the  forced  growth  of  pain  or  in- 
firmity or  privation ;  but  springing  up  as  by  God's  immediate 
planting  in  a  sort  of  garden  of  all  that  is  fresh  and  beautiful ; 
full  of  so  much  hope  for  this  world  as  well  as  for  Heaven. 
All  this  has  very  much  driven  the  Newmanites  out  of  my 
head ;  and  indeed  while  I  am  here,  I  see  and  hear  very  little 
of  them,  but  I  quite  think  they  are  a  great  evil,  and  I  fear  a 
growing  one  ;  though  on  this  point  I  find  that  opinions  differ. 

I  could  not  express  my  sense  of  what  Bunsen  is 

without  seeming  to  be  exaggerating ;  but  I  think  if  you  could 
hear  and  see  him,  even  for  one  half-hour,  you  would  under- 
stand my  feeling  towards  him.  He  is  a  man  in  whom  God's 
graces  and  gifts  are  more  united  than  in  any  other  person 
whom  I  ever  saw.  I  have  seen  men  as  holy,  as  amiable,  as 
able :  but  I  never  knew  one  who  was  all  three  in  so  extraor- 
dinary a  degree,  and  combined  with  a  knowledge  of  things 
new  and  old,  sacred  and  profane,  so  rich,  so  accurate,  so  pro- 
found that  I  never  knew  it  equalled  or  approached  by  any  man. 

November  28th.  —  This  letter  has  waited  for  five  days,  and 
I  must  now  manage  to  finish  it.  I  have  been  much  distressed, 
also,  by  the  accounts  of  the  alarming  agitation  which  is  going 
on  in  the  manufacturing  districts  of  Yorkshire  and  Lanca- 
shire ;  an  agitation  not  political  merely,  but  social,  complain- 
ing of  the  unequal  reward  of  labor,  and  inveighing  against 
capital  and  capitalists  in  no  gentle  terms.  Believing  this  to 
be  peculiarly  our  sore  spot,  any  irritation  in  it  always  disturbs 
me ;  and  I  have  been  tempted  to  write  again  on  the  subject,  as 
I  did  in  1831  in  the  Sheffield  Letters.  One  man's  writing  can 
do  but  little,  I  know ;  but  there  is  the  wish,  "  liberare  animam 
meam,"  and  the  hope  that  all  temperate  and  earnest  writing 
on  such  a  subject  must  do  good  as  far  as  it  is  read,  —  must 
lead  men  to  think  and  feel  quietly,  if  it  be  but  for  a  moment. 
My  History  gets  on  but  slowly,  but  still  it  does  make  some 
progress,  as  much  as  I  can  expect  here.  I  am  trying  to  learn 
a  little  Hebrew,  but  I  do  not  know  whether  I  shall  be  able 
to  make  much  of  it ;  it  is  so  difficult  to  find  time  to  learn,  and 
so  irksome  to  remember  the  minute  rules  about  the  alteration 
of  the  vowels.  But  I  should  like,  on  many  accounts,  to  make 
some  progress  in  it.  Is  it  not  marvellous  that  they  can  now 
read  the  old  Egyptian  readily,  and  understand  its  grammar  ? 
It  combines,  as  I  hear,  some  of  the  characteristic  peculiarities 


132  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

of  the  Semitic  languages  with  others  belonging  to  the  Indo- 
Germanic  family,  as  if  it  belonged  to  a  period  previous  to  the 
branching  off  of  these  two  great  families  from  their  common 
stock.  But  these  Egyptian  discoveries  are  likely  to  be  one  of 
the  greatest  wonders  of  our  age.  What  think  you  of  actual 
papyrus  MSS.  as  old  as  the  reign  of  Psammitichus  ?  and  these, 
too,  in  great  numbers,  and  quite  legible. 

CLXXXVin.      TO    THE    CHEVALIER   BUNSEN. 

Rugby,  November  9, 1838. 

I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  valuable  notes  on 

my  MS.  about  the  Church.  I  am  sure  you  will  believe  me 
when  I  say  that  on  such  a  matter  especially,  "  paene  religio 
mihi  est  aliter  ac  tu  sentire."  And  in  one  main  point  you 
agree  with  the  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  who  is  a  man  so  unlike 
you,  and  yet  so  able,  that  your  agreement  on  any  point  is  of 
very  great  weight.  You  interpret,  I  think,  as  he  does,  our 
Lord's  words,  "  that  his  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world,"  and 
you  hold  that  the  Church  may  not  wield  the  temporal  sword. 
This  is  undoubtedly  the  turning-point  of  the  whole  question  ; 
and  if  you  are  right  in  these  positions,  it  follows  undoubtedly 
that  the  Church  never  can  be  a  sovereign  society,  and  there- 
fore can  never  be  identical  with  a  Christian  State. 

Now  I  want  to  know  what  principles  and  objects  a  Chris- 
tian State  can  have,  if  it  be  really  Christian,  more  or  less 
than  those  of  the  Church.  In  whatever  degree  it  differs  from 
the  Church,  it  becomes,  I  think,  in  that  exact  proportion  un- 
christian. In  short,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  state  must  be 
"  the  world,"  if  it  be  not  "  the  Church  ; "  but  for  a  society  of 
Christians  to  be  "  the  world  "  seems  monstrous.  Nor  can  I 
understand,  if  this  be  so,  how  any  Christian  can  take  a  part, 
otherwise  than  as  passively  obeying,  in  the  concerns  of  Gov- 
ernment. If  TI  woAiTft'a  fipii>i>  lv  ovpatxp,  then  we  are  in  the 
world  as  £ei/oi  or  /XC'TCHKM,  and  should  not  be  "  curiosi  in  aliena 
republica."  I  think,  then,  that  St.  Paul's  command  to  the 
Christians  of  Corinth  would  apply  to  us,  and  that  we  ought 
never  to  carry  a  cause  into  any  other  than  ecclesiastical  courts ; 
for,  if  the  civil  courts  are  not  really  Church  courts,  they  are 
not  the  courts  of  the  <Jyioi,  but  of  the  world ;  and  the  world 
cannot  and  ought  not  to  judge  between  Christian  and  Chris- 
tian. 

When  Christ  said  that  his  kingdom  was  not  of  this  world, 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  133 

and  forbade  James  and  John  to  call  down  fire  from  heaven, 
&c.,  His  meaning  seems  to  me  to  have  been  this,  that  moral 
and  religious  superiority,  i.  e.  the  being  Christians,  did  not 
confer  any  title  to  physical  and  external  dominion.*  The 
saints,  as  such,  are  not  to  claim  to  exercise  power ;  and  this, 
I  think,  is  the  bar  to  religious  persecution,  because  it  is  not 
the  possession  of  religious  superiority  that  warrants  us  in 
exercising  physical  power  over  other  men.  This  bars  the 
fanatical  doctrine,  that  the  earth  belongs  to  God's  saints :  it 
bars  also,  as  I  think,  all  minor  phases  of  the  same  doctrine ; 
and  especially,  I  think,  it  condemns  the  maintaining  by  force 
a  Protestant  Establishment  in  a  Roman  Catholic  country,  as 
we  do  in  Ireland. 

But,  —  government  being  in  itself  good,  and  declared  to  be 
God's  instrument  for  the  punishment  of  evil  and  the  advance- 
ment of  good,  —  what  possible  objection  can  there  be  to  its 
being  exercised  by  Christians,  when  they  become  possessed  of 
it  according  to  the  ordinary  laws  of  human  society  ?  And  if 
Christians  exercise  it  they  must  do  it  either  on  the  principles 
of  the  world,  or  of  the  Church ;  but  it  can  be  only  on  the 
latter,  for  otherwise  they  would  be  false  Christians. 

Again,  the  epyov  of  a  Christian  State  and  Church  is  abso- 
lutely one  and  the  same ;  nor  can  a  difference  be  made  out 
which  shall  not  impair  the  Christian  character  of  one  or  both ; 
as,  e.  g.  the  epyov  of  the  State  be  made  to  be  merely  physical 
or  economical  good,  or  that  of  the  Church  be  made  to  be  the 
performing  of  a  ritual  service. 

It  is  said  that  the  State  can  never  be  kept  sufficiently  pure 
to  be  worthy  of  being  considered  as  the  Church ;  but  this  to 
me  is  a  confusion.  Purity  and  extent,  whether  as  Church  or 
State,  are  to  a  certain  degree  incompatible.  A  large  church 
relaxes  discipline,  and  for  this  very  reason,  F will  not  be- 
long to  the  Church  of  England.  On  the  other  hand,  States 
can  and  have  enforced  the  greatest  strictness  of  life,  as  at 
Sparta ;  and  the  law  can  always  insist  upon  anything  which  is 
called  for  by  public  opinion.  To  make  public  opinion  really 
Christian  is  difficult ;  but  it  is  a  difficulty  which  exists  as  much 
in  a  Church  as  in  a  Christian  state ;  those  who  are  nominal 

*  "  Was  Theodosius  right  or  wrong  in  changing  the  temples  into  churches  ? 
Wrong,  if  he  did  it  because  in  his  belief  Christianity  was  the  only  true  faith. 
—  right  if  he  did  it  because  the  Roman  world  was  become  Christian,  ana 
chose  to  have  its  public  worship  Christian  also."  — MS.  Comments  on  Arch 
bishop  Whately's  Kingdom  of  Christ 

VOL.  II.  12 


134  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

Christians  in  one  relation  will  be  so  in  the  other.  I  could 
add  much  more  on  this  point ;  but  this  will  be  enough  to  show 
you  that  I  do  not  differ  from  you  without  consideration.  But, 
as  the  book  is  in  no  danger  of  being  published  yet,  there  will 
be  ample  time  to  go  over  the  question  again  fully,  and  also  to 
add  those  explanations  which  the  naked  statements  in  the 
MS.  seem  to  require. 

Another  point,  on  which  I  do  not  seem  as  yet  fully  to  enter 
into  your  views,  relates  to  what  you  say  of  the  Sacraments. 
I  do  not  quite  understand  the  way  in  which  you  seem  to  con- 
nect the  virtue  of  external  ordinances  with  the  fact  of  the 
Incarnation.  My  own  objection  to  laying  a  stress  on  the 
material  elements,  —  as  distinct  from  the  moral  effect  of  the 
Communion,  or  of  the  becoming  introduced  into  the  Chris- 
tian Society,  —  is  very  strong,  because  I  think  that  such  a 
notion  is  at  variance  with  the  essential  character  of  Chris- 
tianity. I  am  sure  that  in  this  we  agree ;  but  yet  I  think 
that  we  should  express  ourselves  differently  about  the  Sacra- 
ments, and  here  I  believe  that  you  have  got  hold  of  a  truth 
which  is  as  yet  to  me  dark ;  just  as  I  cannot  understand 
music,  yet  nothing  doubt  that  it  is  my  fault,  and  not  that  of 
music. 

CLXXXIX.       TO    REV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

Fox  How,  January  12,  1839. 

When  I  found  how  entirely  I  agreed  with  your 

Sermon  on  Private  Judgment,  it  struck  me  that  I  had  taken 
rather  too  indifferently  the  sort  of  vague  odium  which  has 
been  attached  to  my  opinions,  or  supposed  opinions,  for  the 
last  ten  years  in  Oxford ;  that  I  had  forfeited  a  means  of  in- 
fluence which  I  might  have  had,  and  which  would  have  been 
a  valuable  addition  to  what  I  have  enjoyed  among  my  own 
pupils  at  Rugby.  I  do  not  mean  anything  political,  nor  in- 
deed as  to  the  right  or  the  wrong  of  my  opinions  on  any  mat- 
ter, because  I  have  held  them  decidedly  and  expressed  them 
openly,  and  people  who  differ  from  me  will  of  course  think 
me  wrong.  But  I  think  I  have  endured  too  quietly  a  sus- 
picion affecting  me  more  directly  professionally  ;  a  suspicion 
of  heterodoxy  such  as  was  raised  against  Hampden,  and 
which  would  exclude  me  from  preaching  before  the  Univer- 
sity ;  an  office  to  which  otherwise  I  think  I  should  have  a 
fair  claim,  from  my  standing,  and  from  my  continued  con- 
nection with  the  University  through  the  successive  generations 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  135 

of  my  pupils.  Now  this  suspicion  is,  I  contend,  perfectly 
unfounded  in  itself,  and  at  the  present  moment  it  is  ridicu- 
lous ;  because  the  Newmanites  are  far  more  at  variance  with 
the  Articles,  Liturgy,  and  Constitution  of  the  Church  of 
England  than  any  clergymen  have  been  within  my  memory ; 
and  yet  even  those  who  most  differ  from  them  do  not  en- 
deavor, so  far  as  I  know,  to  hinder  them  from  preaching  in 
Oxford.  I  am  perfectly  aware  that  my  opinion  about  the 
pretended  Apostolical  succession  is  different  from  that  of 
most  individual  clergymen,  but  I  defy  any  man  to  show  that 
it  is  different  from  the  opinion  of  the  Church  of  England ; 
and,  if  not,  it  is  fairly  an  open  question,  on  which  any  man 
may  express  his  own  opinion  peaceably ;  and  he  is  the  schis- 
matic who  would  insist  upon  determining  in  his  own  way 
what  the  Church  has  not  determined.  But  in  what  is  com- 
monly called  doctrine,  as  distinct  from  discipline,  I  do  not 
think  that  anything  can  be  found  in  any  of  my  sermons,  pub- 
lished or  not  published,  which  is  more  at  variance  with  the 
doctrines  of  the  Church  than  what  is  to  be  found  in  the  ser- 
mons of  any  other  man  who  has  written  as  many ;  and  not 
only  so,  but  I  think  there  is  no  negative  difference  ;  that  is,  I 
think  there  would  be  found  no  omission  of  any  points  which 
the  Reformers  would  have  thought  essential,  bating  some  par- 
ticular questions  which  were  important  then,  and  are  now 
gone  by.  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  bear  my  portion  of  odium 
for  all  that  I  really  have  written,  and  the  Newmanites  may 
fairly  speak  against  my  opinions  as  I  do  against  theirs.  But 
a  vague  charge  of  holding,  not  wrong,  but  technically  unor- 
thodox opinions,  affects  a  man's  professional  usefulness  in  a 
way  that  in  any  other  profession  would  be  thought  intolerable ; 
and,  in  fact,  in  other  professions  men  would  be  ashamed  or 
afraid  to  breathe  it.  I  have  gone  on  with  it  quietly  for  a  long 
time,  partly  because  no  charge  has  ever  been  brought  against 
me  which  I  could  answer,  and  partly  because,  whilst  I  was  so 
fully  engaged  at  Rugby,  I  was  not  practically  reminded  of  it. 
But  as  I  grow  older,  and  the  time  is  approaching  more  and 
more  when  I  must,  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  be  thinking 
of  leaving  Rugby,  and  when  I  see  a  state  of  things  in  Oxford 
which  greatly  needs  the  help  of  every  man  interested  about 
the  University,  —  when  I  see  that  you  are  doing  a  great  deal 
of  good,  and  without  any  question  of  your  orthodoxy,  so  far 
as  I  know,  and  yet  know  that  in  my  constant  preaching  there 
is  as  little  that  anybody  could  call  heterodox  as  in  yours,  —  it 


136  LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

makes  me  feel  that  I  ought  not  silently  to  bear  a  sort  of  bad 
name,  which  to  man  or  dog  is  little  better  than  hanging ;  and 
that  it  would  be  desirable,  if  there  rgally  is  a  similar  feeling 
against  me  to  that  which  exists  against  Hampden,  to  get  it  if 
possible  into  some  tangible  shape.  I  wish  you  would  think  of 
this  matter  a  little,  and  give  me  your  judgment.  We  are  all 
well  and  enjoying  this  rest,  which  enables  me  to  work  and  to 
gain  refreshment  at  the  same  time. 

CXC.      TO   J.    C.    PLATT,   ESQ. 

Fox  How,  January  20,  1839. 

I   have   often   thought  of  you  and  the   Courant 

during  this  new  excitement  of  the  operative  population. 
Most  gladly  would  I  join  in  any  feasible  attempt  to  check 
this  terrible  evil,  which  men  seem  to  regard  as  so  hopeless 
that  they  would  rather  turn  their  eyes  away  from  it,  and  not 
look  at  it  till  they  must.  But  that  "  must  "  will  come,  I  fear, 
but  too  soon  ;  simply  because  they  will  not  look  at  it  now. 

I  am  inclined  to  think,  that  the  Poor  Law,  though 

I  quite  believe  it  to  be  in  itself  just  in  its  principle,  has  yet 
done  more  moral  harm,  by  exasperating  the  minds  of  the  poor, 
than  it  can  possibly  have  done  good.  I  am  very  far,  however, 
from  wishing  to  return  to  the  old  system ;  but  I  think  that  the 
Poor  Law  should  be  accompanied  by  an  organized  system  of 
Church  charity,  and  also  by  some  acts  designed  in  title,  as 
well  as  in  substance,  for  the  relief  of  the  poor,  and  that  by 
other  means  than  driving  them  into  economy  by  terror.  Econ- 
omy itself  is  a  virtue  which  appears  to  me  to  imply  an  exist- 
ing previous  competence ;  it  can  surely  have  no  place  in  the 
most  extreme  poverty ;  and  for  those  who  have  a  competence 
to  require  it  of  those  who  have  not,  seems  to  me  to  be  some- 
thing very  like  mockery I  shall  be  in  London,  I 

hope,  on  the  6th,  and  shall  be  staying  at  No.  1,  Tavistock 
Square.  If  I  can  see  you  either  there,  or  by  calling  on  you 
in  Ludgate  Street,  it  will  give  me  much  pleasure. 

CXCI.      TO    REV.    F.    C.   BLACKSTONE. 

Rugby,  February  25,  1839. 

I  read  and  have  got  Gladstone's  book,  and  quite 

agree  with  you  in  my  admiration  of  its  spirit  throughout ;  I 
also  like  the  substance  of  about  half  of  it ;  the  rest  of  course 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  137 

appears  to  me  erroneous.  But  it  must  be  good  to  have  a 
public  man  writing  on  such  a  subject,  and  it  delights  me  to 
have  a  good  protest  against  that  wretched  doctrine  of  War- 
burton's  that  the  State  has  only  to  look  after  body  and  goods. 
"  Too  late,"  however,  are  the  words  which  I  should  be  in- 
clined to  affix  to  every  plan  for  reforming  society  in  England ; 
we  are  engulfed,  I  believe,  inevitably,  and  must  go  down 
the  cataract ;  although  ourselves,  i.  e.  you  and  I,  may  be  in 
Hezekiah's  case,  and  not  live  to  see  the  catastrophe. 

I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  truly  kind  offer  of  assist- 
ance about  the  Roman  History.  If  any  man  were  reading 
Augustine  or  any  other  writer  for  his  own  purposes,  and  took 
notes  of  such  points  as  you  mention,  there  is  no  doubt  that  his 
notes  would  be  very  useful  to  me  ;  but  there  is  this  objection 
against  asking  anybody  to  read  for  my  purposes,  that  the 
labor  saved  to  me  might  not  be  in  proportion  to  that  which  I 
was  imposing  on  him.  Such  notes  -as  you  suggest  would  be 
like  an  exceedingly  good  index ;  but  they  must  rather  guide 
my  own  researches  than  supersede  them ;  for  it  is,  I  think, 
absolutely  necessary  to  look  through  for  one's  self  all  the  most 
important  works  which  relate  to  one's  period  of  history.  I 
shall  save  myself  many  or  most  of  the  Byzantine  writers  by 
stopping  at  any  rate  in  the  eighth  century,  and  confining  my- 
self chiefly  to  the  Latin  empire. 

.....  I  think  that,  hard  as  the  Agrarian  questions  are, 
they  connect  themselves  with  one  almost  harder,  namely, 
"How  can  slavery  be  really  dispensed  with?"  It  is,  of 
course,  perfectly  easy  to  say  we  will  have  no  slaves,  but  it  is 
not  quite  so  easy  to  make  all  the  human  inhabitants  of  a 
country  what  free  citizens  ought  to  be ;  and  the  state  of  our 
railway  navigators  and  cotton  operatives  is  scarcely  better  for 
themselves  than  that  of  slaves,  either  physically  or  morally, 
and  is  far  more  perilous  to  society.  It  is  when  I  see  all  these 
evils,  which  I  believe  the  church  was  meant  to  remove,  that  I 
groan  over  that  fatal  system  which  has  so  utterly  destroyed  > 
it ;  that  system  of  substituting  unrealities  for  realities,  which 
Newman  and  his  party  are  striving  to  confirm  and  to  propa- 
gate. But  I  feel,  also,  that  even  a  sham  is  better  to  most 
minds  than  nothing  at  all ;  and  that  Newmanism  ought  not  to 
be  met  with  negatives,  by  trying  to  prove  it  to  be  false,  but  by 
something  positive,  such  as  the  real  living  Church  would  be. 
And  how  is  the  Church  to  be  revived  ?  So  Newmanism,  I 
12* 


138  LIFE  OF  DB.  AENOLD. 

suppose,  will  grow  and  grow,  till  it  provokes  a  reaction  of  in- 
fidelity, and  then  infidelity  will  grow  and  grow,  till  up  starts 
Newmanism  again  in  such  form  as  it  may  wear  in  the  twenti- 
eth or  twenty-first  century. 

CXCII.      *TO    A.   P.    STANLEY,   ESQ. 

Bugby,  February  27, 1839. 

The  stir  about  Church  matters,  of  which  Glad- 
stone's book  is  a  symptom,  interests  me,  of  course,  and  on  the 
whole  delights  me.  Anything  on  such  point  is,  I  believe, 
better  than  the  mere  ignorance  of  indifference.  But  I  am 
more  and  more  anxious  to  organize,  I  do  not  say  a  party,  for 
I  dislike  all  parties ;  but  a  system  of  action  for  those  who 
earnestly  look  to  the  Church  as  the  appointed  and  only  pos- 
sible means  of  all  earthly  improvement  for  society,  whether  in 
its  larger  divisions  or  'in  its  smaller.  Nothing  can  or  ought 
to  be  done  by  merely  maintaining  negatives ;  I  will  neither 
write  nor  talk,  if  I  can  help  it,  against  Newmanism,  but  for 
that  true  Church  and  Christianity,  which  all  kinds  of  evil,  each 
in  its  appointed  time,  have  combined  to  corrupt  and  destroy. 
It  seems  to  me,  that  a  great  point  might  be  gained  by  urging 
the  restoration  of  the  Order  of  Deacons,  which  has  been  long, 
quoad  the  reality,  dead.  In  large  towns  many  worthy  men 
might  be  found  able  and  willing  to  undertake  the  office  out  of 
pure  love,  if  it  were  understood  to  be  not  necessarily  a  step 
to  the  Presbyterial  order,  nor  at  all  incompatible  with  lay 
callings.  You  would  get  an  immense  gain  by  a  great  exten- 
sion of  the  Church, —  by  a  softening  down  that  pestilent  dis- 
tinction between  clergy  and  laity,  which  is  so  closely  linked 
with  the  priestcraft  system,  —  and  by  the  actual  benefits,  tem- 
poral and  spiritual,  which  such  an  additional  number  of  min- 
isters would  insure  to  the  whole  Christian  congregation.  And 
I  believe  that  the  proposal  involves  in  it  nothing  which  ought 
to  shock  even  a  Newmanite.  The  Canon  Law,  I  think,  makes 
a  very  w.ide  distinction  between  the  Deacon  and  the  Pres- 
byter ;  the  Deacon,  according  to  it,  is  half  a  Layman ;  and 
could  return  at  any  time  to  a  lay  condition  altogether ;  and  I 
suppose  no  one  is  so  mad  as  to  maintain  that  a  minister 
abstaining  from  all  secular  callings  is  a  matter  of  necessity, 
seeing  that  St.  Paul  carried  on  his  trade  of  tentmaker 
even  when  he  was  an  Apostle.  Of  course  the  Ordination 
Service  might  remain  just  as  it  is ;  for  in  fact  no  alteration  in 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 


the  law  is  needed ;  —  it  is  only  an  alteration  in  certain  cus- 
toms which  have  long  prevailed,  but  which  have  really  no 
authority.  It  would  be  worth  while,  I  think,  to  consult  the 
Canon  Law  and  our  own  Ecclesiastical  Law,  so  far  as  we 
have  any,  with  regard  to  the  Order  of  Deacons.  I  have  long 
thought  that  some  plan  of  this  sort  might  be  the  small  end  of 
the  wedge,  by  which  Antichrist  might  hereafter  be  burst 
asunder  like  the  Dragon  of  Bell's  temple. 

CXCIII.      *  TO   J.    P.  GELL,  ESQ. 

Rugby,  March  15,  1839. 

I  have  just  received  a  letter  from  Sir  John  Franklin,  who, 
as  you  know,  is  Governor  of  Van  Diemen's  Land,  accom- 
panied by  one  from  the  Colonial  Office,  asking  me  to  recom- 
mend some  man  as  Head-master  of  a  great  school  in  Van 
Diemen's  Land,  which  it  is  wished  to  establish  on  the  very 
highest  scale  in  the  hope  that  it  may  hereafter  become  a  Col- 
lege or  University  for  that  part  of  the  world.  [After  stating 
the  nature  of  the  situation.]  He  enters  at  length  and  with 
all  his  heart  into  the  plan  ;  and  from  what  he  tells  me  of  the 
capabilities  and  the  wants  of  the  situation,  I  know  of  no  man 
whom  I  could  so  much  wish  to  see  intrusted  with  it  as  your- 
self, if  you  should  feel  disposed  to  let  me  name  you  to  Lord 
Normanby.  It  is  a  most  noble  field,  and  in  Franklin  himself 
you  will  have  a  fellow-laborer,  and  a  Governor  with  and 
under  whom  it  would  do  one's  heart  good  to  work.  He  wants 
a  Christian,  a  gentleman,  and  a  scholar,  —  a  member  of  one 
of  our  Universities,  —  a  man  of  ability  and  of  vigor  of  char- 
acter, —  to  become  the  father  of  the  education  of  a  whole 
quarter  of  the  globe ;  and  to  assist,  under  God's  blessing,  and 
with  the  grace  of  Christ's  Spirit,  in  laying  the  foundations  of 
all  good  and  noble  principles,  not  only  in  individual  children, 
but  in  an  infant  nation,  which  must  hereafter  influence  the 
world  largely  for  good  or  for  evil.  And  I  think  that,  if  you 
could  feel  disposed  to  undertake  this  great  missionary  labor, 
you  would  work  at  it  in  the  spirit  of  Christ's  servant,  and 
would  become  the  instrument  of  blessings,  not  to  be  num- 
bered, to  thousands,  and  would  for  yourself  obtain  a  Kapnov 
cpyou,  such  as  can  rarely  be  the  fortune  of  the  most  ambitious. 
Let  me  know  your  mind  as  soon  as  you  can  decide  on  a  mat- 
ter which  you,  I  am  sure,  will  not  treat  lightly.  Give  my 
kindest  regards  to  your  father,  towards  whom  I  feel  more 


140  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

guilty  than  towards  any  one  else ;  for  I  am  afraid  that  he  and 
your  mother  will  not  thank  me  for  making  such  a  proposal. 
But  I  believe  you  to  be  so  eminently  the  man  for  such  an 
undertaking,  that  I  could  not  acquit  myself  of  my  commission 
to  the  Government,  without  naming  it  to  you.  Your  brother 
is  very  well,  and  writing  Greek  verse  close  by  my  side,  see- 
ing that  it  is  Fourth  Lesson.  I  hope  that  you  can  give  me 
good  accounts  of  your  brother  Charles. 

CXCIV.      TO   THE   UNDER    SECRETARY   OF    STATE. 
(Relating  to  the  College  in  Van  Diemen's  Land.) 

Rugby,  March  19, 1839. 

Some  expressions  in  your  letter  lead  me  to  ask 

whether,  if  the  person  appointed  to  the  School  were  not  in 
orders,  there  would  be  an  objection  on  the  part  of  the  Gov- 
ernment to  his  entering  into  them  before  he  left  England? 
Because,  I  think  that  many  persons  best  fitted  to  carry  on  the 
work  of  education,  would  be  actually  unwilling  to  engage  in 
it  unless  they  were  allowed  to  unite  the  clerical  character 
with  that  of  the  teacher.  This  feeh'ng  is,  I  confess,  entirely 
my  own.  Even  in  a  far  lower  point  of  view,  as  to  what 
regards  the  position  of  a  schoolmaster  in  society,  you  are  well 
aware  that  it  has  not  yet  obtained  that  respect  in  Eingland,  as 
to  be  able  to  stand  by  itself  in  public  opinion  as  a  liberal 
profession  ;  it  owes  the  rank  which  it  holds  to  its  connection 
with  the  profession  of  a  clergyman,  for  that  is  acknowledged 
universally  in  England  to  be  the  profession  of  a  gentleman. 
Mere  teaching,  like  mere  literature,  places  a  man,  I  think,  in 
rather  an  equivocal  position ;  he  holds  no  undoubted  station  in 
society  by  these  alone ;  for  neither  education  nor  literature 
have  ever  enjoyed  that  consideration  and  general  respect  in 
England,  which  they  enjoy  in  France  and  in  Germany.  But 
a  far  higher  consideration  is  this,  that  he  who  is  to  educate 
boys,  if  he  is  fully  sensible  of  the  importance  of  his  business, 
must  be  unwilling  to  lose  such  great  opportunities  as  the 
clerical  character  gives  him,  by  enabling  him  to  address  them 
continually  from  the  pulpit,  and  to  administer  the  Communion 
to  them  as  they  become  old  enough  to  receive  it.  And  in  a 
remote  colony  it  would  be  even  more  desirable  than  in  Eng- 
land, that  the  head  of  a  great  institution  for  education  should 
be  able  to  stand  in  this  relation  to  his  pupils ;  and  I  am  quite 
Bure  that  the  spirit  of  proselytism,  which  some  persons  appear 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  141 

BO  greatly  to  dread,  would  no  more  exist  in  a  good  and  sen- 
sible clergyman,  than  in  a  good  and  sensible  layman.  Your 
master  must  be  a  member  of  some  Church  or  other,  if  he  is 
not  a  minister  of  it ;  if  he  is  a  sincere  member  of  it,  and 
fitted  to  give  religious  instruction  at  all,  he  must  be  anxious 
to  inculcate  its  tenets  ;  but,  if  he  be  a  man  of  judgment  and 
honesty,  and  of  a  truly  Catholic  spirit,  he  will  find  it  a  .still 
more  sacred  duty  not  to  abuse  the  confidence  of  those  par- 
ents of  different  persuasions  who  may  have  intrusted  their 
children  to  his  care,  and  he  will  think  besides  that  the  true 
spirit  of  a  Christian  teacher  is  not  exactly  the  spirit  of  prose- 
lytism.  I  must  beg  to  apologize  for  having  trespassed  on 
your  time  thus  long. 

CXCV.      *TO    E.    WISE,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  March  20, 1839. 

Your  letter  gave  me  very  great  pleasure,  and  I  was  really 
obliged  to  you  for  writing  at  such  length,  and  giving  me  a  full 
account  of  all  the  circumstances  of  your  present  situation. 
Everything  in  a  position  like  yours  depends  on  the  disposition 
and  character  of  the  family ;  and  where  these  are  good  and 
kind,  the  life  of  a  tutor  may  be  as  pleasant,  I  think,  as  it  is 
useful  and  respectable 

I  trust  that  your  health  is  completely  restored,  and  that  you 
will  be  able  to  read  gently,  without  feeling  it  a  matter  of 
necessity ;  a  sensation  which  I  suppose  must  aggravate  the 
pressure  greatly  when  a  man  is  reading,  and  feels  himself  not 
strong.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  you  need  not  think  that  your 
own  reading  will  now  have  no  object,  because  you  are  en- 
gaged with  young  boys.  Every  improvement  of  your  own 
powers  and  knowledge  tells  immediately  upon  them;  and 
indeed  I  hold  that  a  man  is  only  fit  to  teach  so  long  as  he  is  : 
himself  learning  daily.  If  the  mind  once  becomes  stagnant, 
it  can  give  no  fresh  draught  to  another  mind  ;  it  is  drinking 
out  of  a  pond,  instead  of  from  a  spring.  And  whatever  you 
read  tends  generally  to  your  own  increase  of  power,  and  will 
be  felt  by  you  in  a  hundred  ways  hereafter. 


142  LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

CXCVI.      *  TO   J.   P.    CELL,   ESQ. 
(On  the  death  of  his  brother  Charles  Cell.) 

Rugby,  April  5,  1839. 

Your  letter  ought  not  to  grieve  me,  but  it  was  a  shock  for 
which  I  was  not  prepared,  as  I  had  not  dreamed  that  your 
brother's  departure  was  so  near.  The  thoughts  of  him  will 
be  amongst  the  most  delightful  of  all  my  thoughts  of  Rugby 
pupils ;  so  amiable  and  so  promising  here,  and  so  early  called 
to  his  rest  and  glory.  I  do  feel  more  and  more  for  my  pupils, 
and  for  my  children  also,  that  I  can  readily  and  thankfully 
see  them  called  away,  when  they  are  to  all  human  appearance 
assuredly  called  home.  This  is  a  lesson  which  advancing 
years  impress  very  strongly.  We  can  then  better  tell  how 
little  are  those  earthly  things  of  which  early  death  deprives 
us,  and  how  fearful  is  the  risk  of  this  world's  struggle.  May 
God  bless  us  through  His  Son,  and  make  us  to  come  at  last, 
be  it  sooner  or  later,  out  of  this  struggle  conquerors. 

CXCVII.       TO    THE    UNDER    SECRETARY    OP    STATE. 

July  1,  1839. 

Nothing  can  be  more  proper  than  that  the  Head- 
master or  Principal  of  the  proposed  School  should  be  sub- 
ject to  the  control  of  the  Governor,  or  of  the  Bishop,  should 
there  be  one  in  the  colony.  I  am  only  anxious  to  understand 
clearly  whether  he  is  to  be  in  any  degree  under  the  control  of 
any  local  Board,  whether  lay  or  clerical ;  because,  if  he  were, 
I  could  not  conscientiously  recommend  him  to  undertake  an 
office  which  I  am  sure  he  would  shortly  find  himself  obliged 
to  abandon.  Uniform  experience  shows,  I  think,  so  clearly 
the  mischief  of  subjecting  schools  to  the  ignorance  and  party 
feelings  of  persons  wholly  unacquainted  with  the  theory  and 
practice  of  education,  that  I  feel  it  absolutely  necessary  to 
understand  fully  the  intentions  of  the  Government  on  this 
question. 

CXCV1II.      TO    MR.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  May  8, 1839. 

[After  speaking  of  a  decision  respecting  the  Foundationers 
in  Rugby  School.]  The  world  will  not  know  that  it  makes 
no  earthly  difference  to  me  in  a  pecuniary  point  of  view, 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  143 

whether  a  boy  is  in  the  lower  school  or  the  upper ;  and  that  if 
I  had  discouraged  the  lower  school,  and  especially  the  Foun- 
dationers, who  do  not  interfere  with  the  number  of  boarders, 
I  should  have  been  quarrelling  with  my  own  bread  and  but- 
ter. Lord  Langdale  did  not  understand  the  difference  which 
I  had  always  made  between  Non-foundationers  and  Founda- 
tioners, as  I  have  indeed  always  advised  people  not  to  send 
their  sons  as  boarders  under  twelve,  but  have  never  applied 
the  same  advice  to  Foundationers  living  under  their  parents' 
roof.  But  it  is  so  old  a  charge  against  masters  of  Foundation 
Schools,  that  they  discourage  the  Foundationers,  in  order  to 
have  boarders  who  pay  them  better,  that  I  dare  say  Lord 
Langdale  and  half  the  world  will  believe  that  I  have  been 
acting  on  this  principle ;  and  my  old  friends  of  the  Tory 
newspapers  are  quite  likely  to  jibe  at  me  as  liking  a  little 
jobbing  in  my  own  particular  case,  as  well  as  other  pretended 
Reformers.  Even  you,  perhaps,  do  not  know  that  I  receive 
precisely  as  much  money  for  every  Foundationer,  if  he  be 
only  a  little  boy  in  the  first  form,  as  I  do  for  any  Non-founda- 
tioner at  the  head  of  the  school ;  so  that  I  have  a  direct  inter- 
est —  since  all  men  are  supposed  to  act  from  interest  —  in 
increasing  the  number  of  Foundationers,  and  no  earthly  inter- 
est or  object  in  diminishing  them.  I  think  you  will  not 
wonder  at  my  being  a  little  sensitive  on  the  present  occasion, 
for  a  judge's  decision  is  a  very  different  thing  from  an  article 
in  a  common  newspaper  ;  and,  as  I  believe  that  nothing  of  the 
latter  sort  has  ever  disturbed  my  equanimity,  so  I  should  not 
wish  to  regard  the  former  lightly.  So  I  should  very  much 
like  to  hear  from  you  what  you  think  is  to  be  done,  —  if  any- 
thing. After  all,  I  could  laugh  heartily  at  the  notion  of  my 
being  suspected  of  a  little  snug  corruption,  after  having 
preached  Reform  all  my  life. 

CXCIX.      TO    SIB   T.    S.   PASLET,   BART. 

Rugby,  May  10,  1839. 

Your  absence  will  be  a  sad  blank  in  our  West- 
moreland visits,  if  we  are  still  allowed  to  continue  them.  But 
seven  years  is  a  long  term  for  human  life,  and  so  long  have 
we  been  permitted  to  go  down  summer  and  winter,  and  return 
with  all  our  family  entire  and  in  good  health  ;  so  that  I  can- 
not but  fancy  that  something  or  other  may  happen  to  break 
this  happy  uniformity  of  our  lives. 


144  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

The  state  of  public  affairs  is  not  inviting,  and  I 

rejoice  that  we  take  in  no  daily  paper.  It  is  more  painful 
than  enough  to  read  of  evils  which  one  can  neither  cure  nor 
palliate.  The  real  evil  which  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  Char- 
tist agitation  is,  I  believe,  too  deep  for  any  human  remedy, 
unless  the  nation  were  possessed  with  a  spirit  of  wisdom  and 
of  goodness,  such  as  I  fear  will  never  be  granted  to  us 
after  we  have  for  so  many  centuries  neglected  the  means 
which  we  have  had.  So  far  from  finding  it  hard  to  believe 
that  repentance  can  ever  be  too  late,  my  only  wonder  is  that 
it  should  ever  be  otherwise  than  too  late,  so  instantaneous  and 
so  lasting  are  the  consequences  of  an  evil  once  committed.  I 
find  it  very  hard  to  hinder  my  sense  of  this  from  quite  oppress- 
ing me,  and  making  me  forget  the  many  blessings  of  my  own 
domestic  condition.  But  perhaps  it  comes  from  my  fondness 
for  History,  that  political  things  have  as  great  a  reality  to  my 
mind,  as  things  of  private  life,  and  the  life  of  a  nation  becomes 
distinct  as  that  of  an  individual.  We  are  going  to  have  a  con- 
firmation here,  by  the  Bishop  of  Worcester,  next  month,  in 
the  chapel,  as  I  wished  to  have  one  every  two  years  at  least, 
for  otherwise  many  of  the  boys  go  abroad  and  are  never  con- 
firmed at  all.  And  I  think  that  we  shall  have  a  third  painted 
window  up  in  the  chapel  before  the  holidays 

CC.   TO  ARCHDEACON  HARE. 

Fox  How,  June  21,  1839. 

I  am  sure  that  you  will  have  sympathized  with  me 

in  the  delight  which  I  have  felt  in  reading  Niebuhr's  Letters ; 
that  letter  in  particular  to  a  young  Student  in  Philology, 
appears  to  me  invaluable.  I  think  that  you  and  Thirlwall 
have  much  to  answer  for  in  not  having  yet  completed  your 
translation  of  the  third  volume  of  the  History.  It  is  only 
when  that  volume  shall  have  become  generally  known,  that 
English  readers  will  learn  to  appreciate  Niebuhr's  excellence 
as  a  narrator.  At  present  I  am  continually  provoked  by 
hearing  people  say,  that  he  indeed  prepared  excellent  materi- 
als for  an  historian,  but  that  he  did  not  himself  write  history. 

I  am  obliged  to  superintend  a  new  edition  of  my  Thu- 
cydides,  which  interferes  rather  with  the  progress  of  my  His- 
tory. And  the  first  volume  of  Thucydides  is  so  full  of  errors, 
both  of  omission  and  commission,  that  to  revise  it  is  a  work 
of  no  little  labor. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  145 

You  would  rejoice  in  the  good  that  Lee  is  doing  at  Bir- 
mingham ;  I  do  not  think  that  there  is,  in  all  England,  a  man 
more  exactly  in  his  place  than  he  is  now. 

CCI.     TO    AN    OLD    PUPIL.    (E.) 

Fox  How,  June  22,  1839. 

I  was  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  last  kind  letter,  and  I 
would  have  answered  it  immediately  had  it  not  arrived  just  at 
our  most  busy  time,  at  the  close  of  the  summer  half-year.  I 
do  not  wonder  at  your  interest  about  the  friend  whom  you 
speak  of,  and  should  be  very  glad  to  be  of  any  assistance  to 
you  in  the  matter.  Priestley's  statements,  as  you  probably 
know,  were  answered  by  Horsley,  and  I  believe  sufficiently 
answered ;  but  neither  of  the  controversialists  was  very  pro- 
found, or,  as  I  should  fear,  very  fair ;  and  but  little  real  benefit 
can  be  derived  from  the  works  of  either.  Priestley's  argu- 
ments now  would  be  repeated  nowhere,  I  suppose,  but  in 
England,  and  in  England  only  amongst  a  sect  so  destitute  of 
theological  and  critical  learning  as  the  Unitarians.  It  goes 
on  two  assumptions :  first,  that  the  Christian  Church  of  Jeru- 
salem held  Unitarian  opinions  ;  and  secondly,  that  the  Church 
of  Jerusalem  was  the  standard  by  which  the  tenets  of  the 
other  churches  were  to  be  measured.  Now  the  second  of 
these  assumptions  is  clearly  wrong,  and  the  first  is  probably 
so ;  but  we  have  very  small  evidence  as  to  the  opinions  of  the 
Church  of  Jerusalem,  and  so  a  dispute  may  be  maintained  for- 
ever on  that  point,  by  those  who  would  confine  their  attention 
to  it,  and  who  do  not  see  that  the  real  stress  of  the  question 
lies  elsewhere.  But  the  Epistles  of  Ignatius  are  a  decided 
proof  that  neither  he  nor  the  churches  of  Asia  were  Uni- 
tarian ;  and  his  language  is  the  more  to  be  valued,  because  it 
is  evidently  not  controversial,  nor  does  he  ever  dream  of 
dwelling  on  Christ's  Divinity  as  a  disputed  point,  but  as  a 
thing  taken  by  all  Christians  for  granted.  I  do  not  under- 
stand, however,  how  an  Unitarian  can  consistently  transfer 
the  argument  from  the  Scripture  to  the  opinion  of  the  early 
Church.  As  he  rejects  the  authority  of  the  Church,  without 
scruple,  where  it  is  clearly  to  be  ascertained,  and  where  it 
speaks  the  opinions  of  Christians  of  all  parts  "of  the  world, 
through  more  than  seventeen  centuries,  it  is  idle  to  refer  to 
the  single  Church  of  Jerusalem  during  a  period  of  twenty  or 
thirty  years,  unless  he  can  show  that  that  Church  was  infal- 

VOL.  II.  13  J 


146  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

lible,  and  its  decisions  of  equal  weight  with  those  of  the  Scrip- 
ture. If  he  says  that  St.  Paul  and  St.  John  corrupted  the 
purity  of  the  true  Gospel,  which  was  kept  only  by  St.  James 
and  the  Church  of  Jerusalem,  —  that  no  doubt  would  be  an 
intelligible  argument ;  but  to  accept  St.  Paul  and  St.  John  as 
inspired  Apostles,  and  then  to  plead  the  opinions  of  the 
Church  of  Jerusalem  against  them,  is  an  absurdity.  And  as 
for  the  Unitarian  interpretations  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  John, 
they  are  really  such  monstrosities  of  extravagance,  that  to 
any  one  used  to  the  critical  study  of  the  ancient  writers,  they 
appear  too  bad  to  have  been  ever  maintained  in  earnest.  And 
thus,  wherever  Unitarianism  has  existed,  together  with  any 
knowledge  of  criticism  or  philology,  as  in  Germany,  it  has  at 
once  assumed  that  the  Apostles  were  not  infallible,  and  that 
they  overrated  the  dignity  of  Christ's  Person.  So  impossible 
is  it  to  doubt  what  St.  John  meant  in  so  many  passages  of  his 
Gospel,  and  what  St.  Paul  meant  in  so  many  passages  of  his 
Epistles.  It  gives  me  the  greatest  pleasure  to  find  that  you 
still  enjoy  your  situation,  and  that  being  the  case,  you  are 
likely,  I  think,  to  find  it  more  and  more  agreeable,  the  longer 
you  hold  it. 

CCII.      TO    REV.    G.    CORNISH. 

Fox  How,  July  6,  1839. 

As  I  believe  that  the  English  universities  are  the 

best  places  in  the  world  for  those  who  can  profit  by  them,  so  I 
think  for  the  idle  and  self-indulgent  they  are  about  the  very 
worst,  and  I  would  far  rather  send  a  boy  to  Van  Diemen's 
Land,  where  he  must  work  for  his  bread,  than  send  him  to 
Oxford  to  live  in  luxury,  without  any  desire  in  his  mind  to 
avail  himself  of  his  advantages.  Childishness  in  boys,  even 
of  good  abilities,  seems  to  me  to  be  a  growing  fault,  and  I  do 
not  know  to  what  to  ascribe  *  it,  except  to  the  great  number 
of  exciting  books  of  amusement,  like  Pickwick  and  Nickleby, 
Bentley's  Magazine,  &c.,  &c.  These  completely  satisfy  all 
the  intellectual  appetite  of  a  boy,  which  is  rarely  very  vora- 
cious, and  leave  him  totally  palled,  not  only  for  his  regular 
work,  which  I  could  well  excuse  in  comparison,  but  for  good 
literature  of  all  sorts,  even  for  History  and  for  Poetry. 

I  went  up  to  Oxford  to  the  Commemoration,  for  the  first 

*  See  Sermons,  vol.  iv.  pp.  39  -  41. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  147 

time  for  twenty-one  years,  to  see  Wordsworth  and  Bunsen 
receive  their  degrees ;  and  to  me,  remembering  how  old  Cole- 
ridge inoculated  a  little  knot  of  us  with  the  love  of  Words- 
worth, when  his  name  was  in  general  a  byword,  it  was 
striking  to  witness  the  thunders  of  applause,  repeated  over 
and  over  again,  with  which  he  was  greeted  in  the  theatre  by 
Undergraduates  and  Masters  of  Arts  alike. 

CCIII.      TO    CHEVALIER    BUXSEN. 

Rugby,  August  23,  1839. 

I  intend  this  letter  to  reach  you  on  the  25th  of  August,  a 
day  which  has  a  double  claim  on  my  remembrance  ;  for  it  is 
my  little  Susy's  birthday  also,  and  I  wish  it  to  convey  to  you, 
though  most  inadequately,  my  congratulation  to  Mrs.  Bunsen 
and  all  your  family  on  the  return  of  that  day,  and  my  earnest 
wishes  for  all  happiness  for  you  and  for  them ;  and,  so  far  as 
we  may  wish  in  such  matters,  my  earnest  desire  that  you  may 
be  long  spared  to  your  friends,  your  family,  your  country,  and 
above  all  to  Christ's  Holy  Catholic  Church,  in  whose  cause  I 
know  you  are  ever  laboring,  and  which  at  this  hour  needs  the 
utmost  service  of  all  her  true  members,  amidst  such  various 
dangers  as  now  threaten  her  from  within  and  from  without. 
I  am  glad  to  think  that  this  one  birthday  more  you  will  pass 
in  England. 

We  shall  see  you  and  all  your  family,  I  confidently  trust, 

ere  very  long.  Meanwhile  you  will  be  glad  to  hear  that 

and  I  enjoyed  our  journey  greatly,  and,  although  we  saw  but 
little  of  Italy,  yet  that  the  South  of  France  even  surpassed 
our  expectations,  and  the  physical  benefit  to  my  health  and 
strength  was  as  complete  as  I  could  desire.  Aries  interested 
me  exceedingly ;  it  was  striking  to  see  the  Amphitheatre  and 
Theatre  so  close  to  each  other,  and  the  two  marble  pillars  still 
standing  in  the  proscenium  of  the  theatre  reminded  me  of 
the  Forum  at  Rome.  I  was  also  much  struck  with  the  de- 
serted port  of  Frejus,  and  the  mole  and  entrance  tower  of  the 
old  harbor,  rising  now  out  of  a  plain  of  grass.  The  famous 
plain  of  stones,  or  plain  of  Craue,  was  very  interesting,  for  it 
lies  now  in  precisely  the  same  state  as  it  was  2300  years  ago, 
or  more,  when  it  was  made  the  scene  of  one  of  the  adventures 
of  Hercules ;  and  the  remarkably  Spanish  character  of  the 
town,  population,  and  neighborhood  of  Salon,  between  Aries 
and  Aix,  was  something  quite  new  to  me.  In  Italy  we  only 


148  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

went  from  Nice  to  Turin,  by  the  Col  di  Tenda,  and  certainly 
in  ray  recollections  of  the  year's  tour,  all  images  of  beauty 
and  interest  are  connected  with  France  rather  than  with  Italy. 
The  intense  drought  had  spoiled  everything,  and  the  main 
Alps  themselves,  as  seen  in  a  perfectly  clear  morning  from 
the  neighborhood  of  Turin,  exhibited  scarcely  more  than 
patches  of  snow  on  their  summits  ;  the  effect  of  a  long  range 
of  snowy  summits  was  completely  gone.  Still,  I  had  a  great 
delight  in  setting  foot  once  more,  if  it  was  but  in  a  mere  cor- 
ner of  Italy ;  sights  which  I  had  half  forgotten  have  taken 
again  a  fresh  place  in  my  memory ;  the  style  of  the  buildings, 

—  the  "  congesta  manu  prseruptis  oppida  saxis  "  —  the  culti- 
vation of  the  valleys  —  the  splendor  of  the  churches  —  nay, 
the  very  roguery  and  lying  of  the  people,  and  their  mar- 
vellous   ignorance  —  rose  up  before  me  again  as  something 
which  I  did  not  wish  to  lose  altogether  out  of  my  mem- 
ory. 

I  paid  a  long  visit  to  Letronne  at  Paris,  and  Peyrou  at 
Turin.  Both  were  very  civil  and  agreeable,  and  gave  me 
several  of  their  works.  Peyrou  had  received  many  letters 
from  Niebuhr,  which  he  showed  to  me  with  seeming  pleasure 

—  but  he  had  never  seen  him.     It  was  sad  to  me  to  find  that 
he  too  had  a  lively  sense  of  the  grievous  ignorance  of  English 
writers  on  points  of  philology.     He  mentioned  to  me  with 
dismay,  and   read  to  me   extracts  from  a  Coptic  dictionary, 
lately  published,  proh  pudor!  at  Oxford,  which  I  had  never 
seen,  or  even  heard  of  the  writer's  name,  nor  do  I  remember 

it  now  —  but  it  was  worthy  to  rank  with 's  extravagances 

about  the  Keltic  languages.     I  tried  hard  at  Provence  to  find 
a  Provencal  Grammar,  but  I  could  not  succeed,  and  they  told 
me  there  was  no  such  thing ;  they  only  showed  me  a  grammar 
for  teaching  French  to  Provencals,  which  they  wanted  to  per- 
suade me  was  all  the  same  thing.     It  seems  that  the  Pro- 
ven<jal  language  is  less  fortunate  than  the  Welsh,  in  having 
wealthy  and  educated  persons  desirous  of  encouraging  it.     I 
could  not  find  that  it  was  at  all  used  now  as  a  written  lan- 
guage, although  it  seemed  to  me  to  be  as  distinct  from  French 
as  Italian  is. 

[After  questions  relating  to  Sillig's  edition  of  Pliny.]  I 
have  read  your  speech  at  Oxford,  and  admire  your  indefati- 
gable exertions  to  see  and  hear  everything  in  England.  But 
I  feel  the  state  of  public  affairs  so  deeply  that  I  cannot  bear 
either  to  read,  or  hear,  or  speak,  or  write  about  them.  Only 


LIFE    OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  149 

I  would  commend  them  to  God's  care  and  deliverance,  if  the 
judgment  is  not  now  as  surely  fixed  as  that  of  Babylon. 

CCIV.       TO    MR.    JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  September  25,  1839. 

I  do  not  know  where  this  letter  may  find  you,  but  I  hope 
that  it  may  be  at  Ottery ;  and  that  you  may  be  enjoying  to 
the  full  your  rest  from  work,  and  the  society  of  your  family, 
and  the  actual  beauty  and  old  recollections  of  your  home. 
We  have  been  at  work  now  nearly  seven  weeks,  so  that  the 
holidays  live  but  in  remote  memory,  and  I  am  very  far  from 
wishing  them  to  come  again  very  speedily ;  for  they  imply 
that  a  half-year  is  gone,  and  there  is  so  much  that  I  would 
fain  do,  that  I  cannot  wish  time  to  pass  away  very  quickly. 
The  South  of  France  puts  me  into  the  best  .bodily  condition  in 
which  I  can  almost  ever  remember  to  have  been ;  and  happily 
the  effect  of  such  a  medicine  does  not  immediately  evaporate  ; 
it  really  seems  to  wind  up  the  machine  for  three  or  four 

months The  Roman  Remains  at  Aries,  the  papal 

remains  at  Avignon,  and  the  Spanish-like  character  of  the 
country  between  Aries  and  Aix  were  exceedingly  interesting. 
I  thought  of  old  days  when  I  used  to  read  Southey's  raptures 
about  Spain  and  Spaniards  as  I  looked  out  on  the  street  at 
Salon,  where  a  fountain  was  playing  under  a  grove  of  plane- 
trees,  and  the  population  were  all  in  felt  hats,  grave  and  quiet, 
and  their  Provencal  language  sounding  much  more  like  Span- 
ish than  French.  Then  we  had  the  open  heaths  covered  with 
the  dwarf  ilex  and  the  Roman  pine,  and  the  rocks  actually 
breathing  fragrance  from  the  number  of  their  aromatic  plants. 

We  arrived  at  Rugby  from  London  in  the  afternoon  of  the 
day  on  which  the  school  opened ;  and  when  we  reached  the 
station,  we  found  there  my  wife  and  all  her  party  from  Fox 
How,  who  had  arrived  barely  five  minutes  before  us,  so  that 
we  actually  all  entered  our  own  house  together.  We  had  a 
very  large  admission  of  new  boys,  larger  than  I  ever  remem- 
ber since  I  have  been  at  Rugby,  so  that  the  school  is  now, 
I  believe,  quite  full.  And  since  that  time  we  have  gone  on 
working  much  as  usual ;  only  Thucydides  is  still  upon  hand, 
and  interferes  with  the  History,  and  will  do  so,  I  fear,  for 
another  month. 

I  have  just  got  the  fourth  volume  of  your  Uncle's  Literary 
Remains,  which  makes  me  regard  him  with  greater  admira- 
ls * 


150  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

tion  than  ever.  He  seems  to  hold  that  point  which  I  have 
never  yet  been  able  to  find  in  any  of  our  English  Divines, 
and  the  want  of  which  so  mars  my  pleasure  in  reading  them. 
His  mind  is  at  once  rich  and  vigorous,  and  comprehensive  and 
critical ;  while  the  iflos  is  so  pure  and  so  lively  all  the  while. 
He  seems  to  me  to  love  Truth  really,  and  therefore  Truth 
presented  herself  to  him  not  negatively,  as  she  does  to  many 
minds,  who  can  see  that  the  objections  against  her  are  un- 
founded, and  therefore  that  she  is  to  be  received ;  but  she 
filled  him,  as  it  were,  heart  and  mind,  imbuing  him  with 
her  very  self,  so  that  all  his  being  comprehended  her  fully 
and  loved  her  ardently ;  and  that  seems  to  me  to  be  true  wis- 
dom  

It  was  just  at  the  foot  of  the  old  Col  di  Tenda  that  I  got 
hold  of  an  English  newspaper  containing  a  charge  of  yours, 
in  which  the  Chartists  were  noticed.  I  was  glad  to  find  that 
your  mind  had  been  working  in  that  direction ;  and  that  you 
spoke  strongly  as  to  the  vast  importance  of  the  subject  I 
would  give  anything  to  be  able  to  organize  a  Society  "  for 
drawing  public  attention  to  the  state  of  the  laboring  classes 
throughout  the  kingdom."  Men  do  not  think  of  the  fearful 
state  in  which  we  are  living ;  if  they  could  once  be  brought 
to  notice  and  to  appreciate  the  evil,  I  should  not  even  yet  de- 
spair that  the  remedy  may  be  found  and  applied ;  even  though 
it  is  the  solution  of  the  most  difficult  problem  ever  yet  pro- 
posed to  man's  wisdom,  and  the  greatest  triumph  over  selfish- 
ness ever  yet  required  of  his  virtue.  A  society  might  give 
the  alarm,  and  present  the  facts  to  the  notice  of  the  public. 
It  was  thus  that  Clarkson  overthrew  the  Slave-Trade ;  and  it 
is  thus,  I  hope,  that  the  system  of  Transportation  has  received 
its  death-blow.  I  have  desired  Fellowes  to  send  you  one  of 
the  copies  of  a  Lecture  which  I  once  showed  you,  about  the 
Divisions  of  Knowledge,  and  which  I  have  just  printed,  in 
the  hope  of  getting  it  circulated  among  the  various  Mechanics' 
Institutes,  where  something  of  the  kind  is,  I  think,  much 
wanted.  Let  me  hear  from  you  when  you  can. 

CCV.      TO    SIR   T.    S.    PASLET. 

Rugby,  September  9,  1839. 

Our  tour  was  most  delightful,  and  put  me  into  such 

a  perfect  state  of  health  as  I  never  can  gain  from  anything 
but  travelling  abroad,  where  one  can  neither  read  nor  write, 


LIFE    OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  151 

nor  receive  letters ;  and  therefore  the  mind  is  perfectly  at 
rest,  while  the  body  is  constantly  enjoying  air  and  exercise, 
light  food,  and  early  hours. 

I  never  before  saw  so  much  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  the 
weather  was  so  perfect  that  it  never  could  have  been  more 
enjoyable.  I  thought  of  you,  particularly  when  we  were  out 
in  a  boat  in  the  midst  of  Toulon  Harbor,  and  rowing  under 
the  stern  of  the  Montebello,  which  seemed  to  me  a  very  fine 
looking  three-decker.  We  went  over  the  Arsenal,  which  I 
thought  very  inferior  to  Portsmouth,  but  the  magnificence  of 
the  harbor  exceeds  anything  that  I  had  ever  seen,  —  how  it 
would  stand  in  your  more  experienced,  as  well  as  better 

judging  eyes,  I  know  not Provence  far  surpassed 

my  expectations ;  the  Roman  remains  at  Aries  are  magnifi- 
cent ;  and  the  prisons  in  the  Pope's  Palace,  at  Avignon,  were 
one  of  the  most  striking  things  I  ever  saw  in  my  life.  In  the 
selfsame  dungeon  the  roof  was  still  black  with  the  smoke  of 
the  Inquisition  fires,  in  which  men  were  tortured  or  burnt ; 
and,  as  you  looked  down  a  trap-door  into  an  apartment  below, 
the  walls  were  still  marked  with  the  blood  of  the  victims 
whom  Jourdan  Coupe  Tete  threw  down  there  into  the  Ice- 
house below  in  the  famous  massacre  of  1791.  It  was  very 
awful  to  see  such  traces  of  the  two  great  opposite  forms  of  all 
human  wickedness,  which  I  know  not  how  to  describe  better 
than  by  calling  them  Priestcraft  and  Benthamism,  or  if  you 
like,  White  and  Red  Jacobinism. 

I  am  still  in  want  of  a  master,  and  I  shall  want  another  at 

Christmas,  but  I  cannot  hear  of  a  man  to  suit  me 

We  are  also  in  almost  equal  distress  for  a  pony  for  my  wife  ; 
and  there,  too,  we  want  a  rare  union  of  qualities ;  that  he 
should  be  very  small,  very  quiet,  very  surefooted,  and  able  to 
walk  more  than  four  miles  an  hour.  If  you  hear  of  any  such 
marvel  of  a  pony  in  your  neighborhood,  I  would  thankfully  be 
at  the  expense  of  its  transit  from  the  Isle  of  Man  to  Rugby ; 
for  to  be  without  a  pony  for  my  wife  interferes  with  our  daily 
comfort  more  than  almost  any  other  external  inconvenience 
could  do. 

I  was  over  at  Birmingham  twice  during  the  meeting  of  the 
British  Association,  and  James  Marshall  was  there  the  whole 
week.  Murchison  convinced  Greenough  and  De  la  Beche, 
on  the  spot,  that  they  must  recolor  all  their  geological  maps ; 
for  what  were  called  the  Gray  Wackes  of  North  Devon,  he 
maintains  to  be  equivalent  to  the  coal-formation  ;  and  the 


152  LIFE    OF  DB.  ABNOLD. 

limestones  on  which  they  rest  are  equivalent  to  the  old  Red 
Sandstone,  which  now  is  to  be  sandstone  no  more,  —  seeing 
that  it  is  often  limestone,  —  but  is  to  be  called  the  Devonian 
System.  Lord  Northampton,  as  Chairman,  wound  up  the 
business  on  the  last  day  in  the  Town  Hall  by  a  few  Christian 
sentences,  simply  and  feelingly  put,  to  my  very  great  satis- 
faction. 

CCVI.      *  TO   J.    L.   HOSKYNS,   ESQ. 

(In  answer  to  a  question  on  the  Preface  to  the  third  volume  of  Sermons. ) 

Bugby,  September  22,  1839. 

It  is  always  a  real  pleasure  to  me  to  keep  up  my  intercourse 
with  my  old  pupils,  and  to  be  made  acquainted  not  only  with 
what  is  happening  to  them  outwardly,  but  much  more  with 
what  is  going  on  in  their  own  minds ;  and  in  your'  case  I  owe 
you  especially  any  assistance  which  it  may  be  in  my  power  to 
render,  as  I  appear  to  have  unconsciously  contributed  to  your 
present  difficulty.  If  you  were  going  into  the  Law,  or  to 
study  Medicine,  there  would  be  a  clear  distinction  between 
your  professional  reading  and  your  general  reading ;  between 
that  reading  which  was  designed  to  make  you  a  good  lawyer 
or  physician,  and  that  which  was  to  make  you  a  good  and 
wise  man.  But  it  is  the  peculiar  excellence  of  the  Christian 
ministry,  that  there  a  man's  professional  reading  and  general 
reading  coincide,  and  the  very  studies  which  would  most  tend 
to  make  him  a  good  and  wise  man,  do  therefore  of  necessity 
tend  to  make  him  a  good  clergyman.  Our  merely  professional 
reading  appears  to  me  to  consist  in  little  more  than  an  ac- 
quaintance with  such  laws,  or  church  regulations,  as  concern 
the  discharge  of  our  ministerial  duties,  in  matters  external 
and  formal.  But  the  great  mass  of  our  professional  reading 
is  not  merely  professional,  but  general ;  that  is  to  say,  if  I  had 
time  at  my  command,  and  wished  to  follow  the  studies  which 
would  be  most  useful  to  me  as  a  Christian,  without  reference 
to  any  one  particular  trade  or  calling,  I  should  select,  as  nearly 
as  might  be,  that  very  same  course  of  study  which  to  my 
mind  would  also  be  the  best  preparation  for  the  work  of  thd 
Christian  ministry. 

That  the  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  is  the  most  essential 
point  in  our  studies  as  men  and  Christians,  is  as  clear  to  my 
mind  as  that  it  is  also  the  most  essential  point  in  our  studies 
as  clergymen.  The  only  question  is,  in  what  manner  is  this 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  153 

knowledge  to  be  best  obtained.  Now,  —  omitting  to  speak  of 
the  moral  and  spiritual  means  of  obtaining  it,  such  as  prayer 
and  a  watchful  life,  about  the  paramount  necessity  of  which 
there  is  no  doubt  whatever,  —  our  present  question  only 
regards  the  intellectual  means  of  obtaining  it,  that  is,  the 
knowledge  and  the  cultivation  of  our  mental  faculties,  which 
may  best  serve  to  the  end  desired. 

Knowledge  of  the  Scriptures  seems  to  consist  in  two  things, 
so  essentially  united,  however,  that  I  scarcely  like  to  separate 
them  even  in  thought ;  the  one  I  will  call  the  knowledge  of 
the  contents  of  the  Scriptures  in  themselves;  the  other  the 
knowledge  of  their  application  to  us,  and  our  own  times  and 
circumstances.  Really  and  truly  I  believe  that  the  one  of 
these  cannot  exist  in  any  perfection  without  the  other.  Of 
course  we  cannot  apply  the  Scriptures  properly  without  know- 
ing them ;  and  to  know  them  merely  as  an  ancient  book  with- 
out understanding  how  to  apply  them,  appears  to  me  to  be 
ignorance  rather  than  knowledge.  But  still  in  thought  we 
can  separate  the  two,  and  each  also  requires  in  some  measure 
a  different  line  of  study. 

The  intellectual  means  of  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  the 
Scriptures  in  themselves  are,  I  suppose,  Philology,  Antiqui- 
ties, and  Ancient  History ;  but  the  means  of  acquiring  the 
knowledge  of  their  right  application  are  far  more  complex  in 
their  character ;  and  it  is  precisely  here,  as  I  think,  that  the 
common  course  of  theological  study  is  so  exceedingly  narrow, 
and  therefore  the  mistakes  committed  in  the  application  of 
the  Scriptures,  are,  as  it  seems  to  me,  so  frequent  and  so  mis- 
chievous. As  one  great  example  of  what  I  mean,  I  will 
instance  the  questions,  which  are  now  so  much  agitated,  of 
Church  authority  and  Church  government.  It  is  just  as  im- 
possible for  a  man  to  understand  these  questions  without  a 
knowledge  of  the  great  questions  of  law  and  government 
generally,  as  it  is  to  understand  any  matter  that  is  avowedly 
political ;  and  therefore  the  Politics  of  Aristotle  and  similar 
works  are  to  me  of  a  very  great  and  direct  use  every  day  of 
my  life,  wherever  these  questions  are  brought  before  me ;  and 
you  know  how  often  these  questions  are  mooted,  and  with 
what  vehemence  men  engage  in  them.  Historical  reading  it 
appears  that  you  are  actually  engaged  in,  but  so  much  of 
History  is  written  so  ill,  that  it  appears  to  me  to  be  desirable 
to  be  well  acquainted  with  the  greatest  historians,  in  order  to 
learn  what  the  defects  of  common  History  are,  and  how  we 


154  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

should  be  able  to  supply  them.  It  is  a  rare  quality  in  any 
man  to  be  able  really  to  represent  to  himself  the  picture  of 
another  age  and  country ;  and  much  of  History  is  so  vague 
and  poor  that  no  lively  images  can  be  gathered  from  it. 
There  is  actually,  so  far  as  I  know,  no  great  ecclesiastical  his- 
torian in  any  language.  But  the  flatnesses  and  meagreness 
and  unfairness  of  most  of  those  who  have  written  on  this  sub- 
ject may  not  strike  us,  if  we  do  not  know  what  good  History 
should  be.  And  any  one  very  great  historian,  such  as  Thucy- 
dides,  or  Tacitus,  or  Niebuhr,  throws  a  light  backward  and 
forward  upon  all  History ;  for  any  one  age  or  country  well 
brought  before  our  minds  teaches  us  what  historical  knowledge 
really  is,  and  saves  us  from  thinking  that  we  have  it  when  we 
have  it  not.  I  will  not  cross  my  writing,  so  I  must  continue 
my  say  in  another  sheet. 

The  accidental  division  of  my  paper  suits  well  with  the 
real  division  of  my  subject  I  have  stated  what  appears  to 
me  to  be  the  best  means  of  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  the 
Scriptures,  both  in  themselves,  and  in  their  application  to  our- 
selves. And  it  is  this  second  part  which  calls  for  such  a 
variety  of  miscellaneous  knowledge  ;  inasmuch  as,  in  order  to 
apply  a  rule  properly,  we  must  understand  the  nature  and 
circumstances  of  the  case  to  which  it  is  to  be  applied,  and 
how  they  differ  from  those  of  the  case  to  which  it  was  ap- 
plied originally.  Thus  there  are  two  states  of  the  human 
race  which  we  want  to  understand  thoroughly ;  the  state 
when  the  New  Testament  was  written,  and  our  own  state. 
And  our  own  state  is  so  connected  with,  and  dependent  on 
the  past,  that  in  order  to  understand  it  thoroughly  we  must  go 
backwards  into  past  ages,  and  thus,  in  fact,  we  are  obliged  to 
go  back  till  we  connect  our  own  time  with  the  first  century, 
and  in  many  points  with  centuries  yet  more  remote.  You 
will  say  then,  in  another  sense  from  what  St.  Paul  said  it, 
"  Who  is  sufficient  for  these  things  ? "  and  I  answer,  "  No 
man ;  "  but,  notwithstanding,  it  is  well  to  have  a  good  model 
before  us,  although  our  imitation  of  it  will  fall  far  short  of  it. 
But  you  say,  how  does  all  this  edify1?  And  this  is  a  matter 
which  I  think  it  is  very  desirable  to  understand  clearly. 

If  death  were  immediately  before  us,  —  say  that  the 
Cholera  was  in  a  man's  parish,  and  numbers  were  dying 
daily,  —  it  is  manifest  that  our  duties,  —  our  preparation  for 
another  life  by  conforming  ourselves  to  God's  will  respecting 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  155 

us  in  this  life,  —  would  become  exceedingly  simple.  To 
preach  the  Gospel,  that  is,  to  lead  men's  faith  to  Christ  as 
their  Saviour  by  His  death  and  resurrection ;  to  be  earnest  in 
practical  kindness;  to  clear  one's  heart  of  all  enmities  and 
evil  passions ;  this  would  be  a  man's  work,  and  this  only  ;  his 
reading  would,  I  suppose,  be  limited  then  to  such  parts  of  the 
Scriptures  as  were  directly  strengthening  to  his  faith,  and  hope, 
and  charity,  to  works  of  prayers  and  hymns,  and  to  such  prac- 
tical instructions  as  might  be  within  his  reach  as  to  the  treat- 
ment of  the  prevailing  disease. 

Now  can  we  say,  that  in  ordinary  life  our  duties  can  be 
made  thus  simple  ?  Are  there  not,  then,  matters  of  this  life 
which  must  be  attended  to  ?  Are  there  not  many  questions 
would  press  upon  us  in  which  we  must  act  and  advise,  besides 
the  simple  direct  preparation  for  death  ?  And  it  being  God's 
will  that  we  should  have  to  act  and  advise  in  these  things, 
and  our  service  to  Him  and  to  His  Church  necessarily  requir- 
ing them  ;  is  it  right  to  say,  that  the  knowledge  which  shall 
teach  us  how  to  act  and  advise  rightly  with  respect  to  them  is 
not  edifying  ? 

But  may  not  a  man  say,  "  I  wish  to  be  in  the  Ministry, 
but  I  do  not  feel  an  inclination  for  a  long  course  of  reading ; 
my  tastes,  and  I  think  my  duties,  lead  me  another  way "  ? 
This  may  be  said,  I  think,  very  justly.  A  man  may  do  im- 
mense good  with  nothing  more  than  an  unlearned  familiarity 
with  the  Scriptures,  with  sound  practical  sense  and  activity, 
taking  part  in  all  the  business  of  his  parish,  and  devoting 
himself  to  intercourse  with  men  rather  than  with  books.  I 
honor  such  men  in  the  highest  degree,  and  think  that  they 
are  among  the  most  valuable  ministers  that  the  Church  pos- 
sesses. A  man's  reading,  in  this  case,  is  of  a  miscellaneous 
character,  consisting,  besides  the  Bible  and  such  books  as  are 
properly  devotional,  of  such  books  as  chance  throws  in  his 
way,  or  the  particular  concerns  of  his  parish  may  lead  him  to 
take  an  interest  in.  And,  though  he  may  not  be  a  learned 
man,  he  may  be  that  which  is  far  better  than  mere  learning, 
—  a  wise  man,  and  a  good  man. 

All  that  I  would  entreat  of  every  man  with  whom  I  had 
any  influence  is,  that  if  he  read  at  all  —  in  the  sense  of  study- 
ing —  he  should  read  widely  and  comprehensively ;  that  he 
should  not  read  exclusively  or  principally  what  is  called 
Divinity.  Learning,  as  it  is  called,  of  this  sort,  —  when  not 
properly  mixed  with  that  comprehensive  study  which  alone 


156  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

deserves  the  name,  —  is,  I  am  satisfied,  an  actual  mischief  to 
a  man's  mind ;  it  impairs  his  simple  common  sense,  and  gives 
him  no  wisdom.  It  makes  him  narrow-minded,  and  fills  him 
with  absurdities ;  and,  while  he  is  in  reality  grievously  igno- 
rant, it  makes  him  consider  himself  a  great  divine.  Let  a  man 
read  nothing,  if  he  will,  except  his  Bible  and  Prayer-Book 
and  the  chance  reading  of  the  day ;  but  let  him  not,  if  he 
values  the  power  of  seeing  truth  and  judging  soundly,  let  him 
not  read  exclusively  or  predominantly  the  works  of  those 
who  are  called  divines,  whether  they  be  those  of  the  first 
four  centuries,  or  those  of  the  sixteenth  or  those  of  the 
eighteenth  or  seventeenth.  With  regard  to  the  Fathers,  as 
they  are  called,  I  would  advise  those  who  have  time  to  read 
them  deeply,  those  who  have  less  time  to  read  at  least  parts  of 
them  ;  but  in  all  cases  preserve  the  proportions  of  your  read- 
ing. Read,  along  with  the  Fathers,  the  writings  of  men  of 
other  times  and  of  different  powers  of  mind.  Keep  your 
view  of  men  and  things  extensive,  and  depend  upon  it  that  a 
mixed  knowledge  is  not  a  superficial  one ;  —  as  far  as  it  goes, 
the  views  that  it  gives  are  true,  —  but  he,  who  reads  deeply 
in  one  class  of  writers  only,  gets  views  which  are  almost  sure 
to  be  perverted,  and  which  are  not  only  narrow  but  false. 
Adjust  your  proposed  amount  of  reading  to  your  time  and 
inclination  —  this  is  perfectly  free  to  every  man,  but  whether 
that  amount  be  large  or  small,  let  it  be  varied  in  its  kind  and 
widely  varied.  If  I  have  a  confident  opinion  on  any  one 
point  connected  with  the  improvement  of  the  human  mind,  it 
is  on  this.  I  have  now  given  you  the  principles  which  I 
believe  to  be  true,  with  respect  to  a  clergyman's  reading. 

If  you  can  come  to  Rugby  in  your  way  to  Oxford,  I  will 
add  anything  in  my  power  to  the  details  ;  at  any  rate  I  shall 
be  delighted  to  see  you  here,  and  I  shall  have  great  pleasure 
in  giving  you  an  introduction  to  Hamilton,  who,  I  am  sure, 
would  value  your  acquaintance  much. 

CCVII.      *TO    T.    BUHBIDGE,    ESQ. 

(Travelling  in  Switzerland.) 

Rugby,  October  2,  1839. 

Vaughan  has   just  got  his  fellowship  at  Trinity, 

and  Howson,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  has  not.  Freeman  has  been 
staying  with  us  for  some  days,  and  we  all  like  him  more  and 
more.  And  in  the  course  of  the  next  fortnight,  I  suppose 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  157 

that  we  shall  see  several  of  our  friends  from  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  just  before  the  time  of  their  gathering.  Our 
weather  has  been  sadly  capricious ;  for  the  last  ten  days  it 
has  been  much  better,  and  I  bathed  in  the  Waterfall  yester- 
day ;  but  to-day  it  is  again  broken,  and  is  cold  and  rainy.  I 
watch  with  a  most  intense  interest  the  result  of  the  harvest, 
believing  that  the  consequences  of  a  bad  crop  may  be  most 
serious  ;  and  having  also  a  belief,  that  there  are  many  symp- 
toms about  of  one  of  those  great  periods  of  judgment  which 
are  called  the  Comings  of  our  Lord ;  periods  which  I  could 
bear  with  far  greater  equanimity,  if  the  distracted  state  of  the 
Church,  or  rather  the  non-existence  of  the  Church  for  very 
many  of  its  highest  objects,  did  not  make  it  so  hard  to  find 
sympathy.  Those  men  at  Oxford  look  upon  me  as  a  her- 
etic, —  and  though  I  hope  and  believe  that  I  could  feel  almost 
entire  sympathy  with  them,  if  we  were  together  in  mere  suf- 
fering, or  death,  yet  in  life  and  in  action  I  necessarily  shrink 
from  them  when  I  see  them  laboring  so  incessantly,  though  I 
doubt  not  so  ignorantly,  to  enthrone  the  very  Mystery  of 
falsehood  and  iniquity  in  that  neglected  and  dishonored  Tem- 
ple, the  Church  of  God.  And  then  those  who  are  called 
Liberals !  And  the  Zurich  Government  putting  Strauss  for- 
ward as  an  instructor  of  Christians !  It  is  altogether  so  sad, 
that  if  I  were  to  allow  myself  to  dwell  much  upon  it,  I  think  it 
would  utterly  paralyze  me.  I  could  sit  still  and  pine  and 
die. 

You  have  heard  that  the  school  is  flourishing  outwardly ; 
as  to  its  inward  state,  I  fear  that  Walrond's  account  is  too 
favorable,  although  there  is  I  think  no  particular  ground  of 
complaint,  and  there  is  much  to  like  and  think  well  of.  .... 
The  Latin  verse  altogether  in  the  Form  is  much  better  than 
it  was ;  Latin  prose  I  think  not  so.  I  have  nearly  finished 
Thucydides,  and  then  I  hope  to  turn  again  to  Rome.  The 
second  edition  of  the  first  volume  is  now  printing.  Pray  call 
on  Amadee  Peyrou  at  Turin,  with  my  respects  to  him ;  he 
will  be  very  civil  to  you,  and  you  will,  I  think,  like  him.  He 
will  tell  you  if  anything  has  come  out  since  I  was  at  Turin, 
which  it  would  concern  me  to  get ;  and  if  there  is,  will  you 
be  so  kind  as  to  get  it  for  me  ? 


VOL.  ii.  14 


158  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 


CCVni.   TO  CHEVALIER  BUNSEN. 

Rugby,  October  4, 1839. 

When  I  think  of  you  as  really  going  to   leave 

England,  it  makes  me  think  how  much  there  still  is  on  which 
I  want  to  talk  to  you  more  fully.  Particularly,  I  must  get 
you  some  day  to  answer  for  me  in  writing  certain  questions 
as  to  the  Lord's  supper.  I  think  that  you  and  Samuel  Cole- 
ridge both  agree  with  one  another  and  differ  from  me,  and  this 
of  course  makes  me  suspect  the  justness  of  my  own  views, 
while  it  makes  me  sure  that  what  you  and  Coleridge  hold  can 
he  nothing  superstitious  or  unchristian.  I  see  clearly  the 
wide  difference  between  what  you  hold  and  the  opinions  which 
I  so  dread  and  condemn.  But,  plainly,  I  cannot  arrive  at 
even  your  notion  of  the  Communion,  or  what  I  believe  to  be 
your  notion,  from  the  Scriptures,  without  interpreting  them  by 
what  is  called  the  Consensus  Ecclesiae.  Now  this  so  called 
Consensus  Ecclesiae  is  in  such  a  matter  to  me  worth  nothing, 
because  such  a  view  of  the  Communion  was  precisely  in 
unison  with  the  tendencies  of  the  prevailing  party  in  the 
Church  whose  writings  are  now  called  Consensus  Ecclesiae. 
And  if  I  follow  this  pretended  Consensus  in  forming  my 
views  of  the  Sacraments,  I  appear  to  myself  to  be  undoing 
St.  Paul's  and  our  Lord's  work  in  one  great  point,  and  to  be 
introducing  that  very  Judaism  to  which  Christianity  is  so 
directly  .opposed,  and  which  consists  in  ascribing  spiritual 
effects'  to  outward  and  bodily  actions.  It  seems  to  me  histori- 
cally certain  that  the  Judaism  which  upheld  Circumcision  and 
insisted  on  the  difference  of  meats,  after  having  vainly  en- 
deavored to  sap  the  Gospel  under  its  proper  Judaic  form,  did, 
even  within  the  first  century,  transfuse  its  spirit  into  a  Chris- 
tian form ;  and  substituting  Baptism  for  Circumcision  and  the 
mystic  influence  of  the  Bread  and  Wine  of  the  Communion 
for  the  doctrine  of  purifying  and  defiling  meats,  did  thereby, 
as  has  happened  many  a  time  since,  pervert  Christianity  to  a 
fatal  extent,  and  seduced  those  who  would  have  resisted  it  to 
the  death  under  its  own  form,  because  now,  though  its  spirit 
was  the  same,  its  form  was  Christian.  Now  I  am  sure  that 
you  are  not  Judaic  either  in  form  or  spirit,  and  therefore  there 
may  be  a  real  Christian  element  in  the  doctrine  which  I  do 
not  perceive  or  am  not  able  to  appreciate.  And  if  so,  it 
would  be  my  earnest  wish  to  be  permitted  to  see  it  and  to  em- 
brace it :  and  it  would  also  be  no  light  pleasure  to  find  myself 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  159 

here  also  in  complete  sympathy  with  you.  About  the  Chris- 
tian Sacrifice  we  agree,  I  believe,  fully ;  but  as  to  the  Com- 
munion, as  distinct  from  the  Sacrifice,  there  is  something  in 
you  and  in  Coleridge,  as  there  is  of  course  in  Luther  also, 
which  I  do  not  find  in  myself,  and  with  which,  as  yet,  to  say 
the  very  truth,  I  cannot  bring  myself  to  agree. 

CCIX.       TO    JAMES    MARSHALL,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  October  30,  1839. 

You  will  think,  I  am  afraid,  that  my  zeal  has  cooled  away 
to  nothing,  since  I  had  last  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  ;  but 
it  was  only  last  week  that  I  received  an  answer,  partly  direct 
and  partly  indirect,  with  regard  to  some  of  those  whose  co- 
operation we  had  wished  to  gain 's  answer  is, 

that  he  thinks  a  Society  would  be  impracticable,  for  that  men 
will  not  agree  as  to  the  remedy,  and  unless  some  remedy  is 
proposed,  there  will  be  no  good,  he  thinks,  in  merely  laying 

bare  the  disease.     And  he  thinks  that will  take  the  same 

view  of  the  question  with  himself.  So  far,  then,  there  is  a 
rebuff  for  us  ;  but  I  think  that  we  must  not  be  discouraged, 
and  that  efforts  may  be  made  in  other  quarters ;  if  these  also 
fail,  then  I  think  that  publication  must  be  tried,  and  the  point 
noticed,  if  possible,  in  some  of  the  leading  reviews  and  news- 
papers ;  but  for  this  details  are  wanted ;  details  at  once  exact 
and  lively,  which  I  imagine  it  will  be  difficult  to  procure  for 
the  whole  kingdom,  except  through  the  mechanism  of  a 
Society.  For  Manchester  there  is,  I  believe,  a  Statistical 
Society  which  would  afford  some  good  materials.  At  present 
people  are  still  so  scattered  about,  many  being  on  the  Conti- 
nent, that  it  is  difficult  to  get  at  them.  But  in  the  vacation  I 
hope  to  be  moving  about  to  different  parts  of  England,  and 
then  I  may  be  able  to  find  somebody  who  may  be  useful. 
And  meantime  I  shall  do  what  alone  lies  in  my  power,  viz. 
write  one  or  two  articles  on  the  subject  in  the  Hertford  Re- 
former, in  which  I  have  written  more  than  once  already.  I 
shall  be  delighted  to  hear  from  you,  and  to  learn  whether  you 
have  made  any  progress,  and  whether  you  have  any  sugges- 
tions to  communicate. 


160  LIFE  OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

CCX.      *  TO    H.    BALSTON,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  November  21,  1839. 

With  regard  to  the  questions  in  your  letter,  I  hold 

that  to  a  great  degree  in  the  choice  of  a  profession,  "sua 
cuique  Deus  fit  dira  cupido,"  a  man's  inclination  for  a  calling 
is  a  great  presumption  that  he  either  is  or  will  be  fit  for  it. 
And  in  education  this  holds  very  strongly,  for  he  who  likes 
boys  has  probably  a  daily  sympathy  with  them ;  and  to  be  in 
sympathy  with  the  mind  you  propose  to  influence  is  at  once 
indispensable,  and  will  enable  you  in  a  great  degree  to  succeed 
in  influencing  it. 

Another  point  to  which  I  attach  much  importance  is  liveli- 
ness. This  seems  to  me  an  essential  condition  of  sympathy 
with  creatures  so  lively  as  boys  are  naturally,  and  it  is  a  great 
matter  to  make  them  understand  that  liveliness  is  not  folly  or 
thoughtlessness.  Now  I  think  the  prevailing  manner  amongst 
many  very  valuable  men  at  Oxford  is  the  very  opposite  to  live- 
liness ;  and  I  think  that  this  is  the  case  partly  with  yourself;  not 
at  all  from  affectation,  but  from  natural  temper,  encouraged,  per- 
haps, rather  than  checked,  by  a  belief  that  it  is  right  and  be- 
coming. But  this  appears  to  me  to  be  in  point  of  manner  the 
great  difference  between  a  clergyman  with  a  parish  and  a 
schoolmaster.  It  is  an  illustration  of  St.  Paul's  rule,  "  Rejoice 
with  them  that  rejoice,  and  weep  with  them  that  weep."  A 
clergyman's  intercourse  is  very  much  with  the  sick  and  the 
poor,  where  liveliness  would  be  greatly  misplaced ;  but  a 
schoolmaster's  is  with  the  young,  the  strong,  and  the  happy, 
and  he  cannot  get  on  with  them  unless  in  animal  spirits  he 
can  sympathize  with  them,  and  show  them  that  his  thought- 
fulness  is  not  connected  with  selfishness  and  weakness.  At 
least  this  applies,  I  think,  to  a  young  man  ;  for  when  a  teacher 
gets  to  an  advanced  age,  gravity,  I  suppose,  would  not  misbe- 
come him,  for  liveliness  might  then  seem  unnatural,  and  his 
sympathy  with  boys  must  be  limited,  I  suppose,  then,  to  their 
great  interests  rather  than  their  feelings. 

You  can  judge  what  truth  may  be  in  this  notion  of  mine 
generally  ;  and  if  true,  how  far  it  is  applicable  to  your  own 
case ;  but,  knowing  you  as  I  do,  my  advice  to  you  would  be 
to  follow  that  line  for  which  you  seem  to  have  the  most  evi- 
dent calling ;  and  surely  the  sign  of  God's  calling  in  such  a 
case  is  to  be  sought  in  our  own  reasonable  inclination,  for  the 
tastes  and  faculties  which  he  gives  us  are  the  marks  of  our 
fitness  for  one  thing  rather  than  another. 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  161 

CCXI.   TO  AN  OLD  PUPIL.   (D.) 

Fox  How,  December  20, 1839. 

It  is  just  one-and-twenty  years  ago  this  very  day  that  I  was 
ordained  Deacon  at  Oxford,  and  I  wish  this  letter  to  reach 
you  on  Sunday,  when  I  suppose  you  will  be  ordained  at  the 
same  place  to  the  same  office.  I  had  enough  and  more  than 
enough  of  scruples  and  difficulties,  not  before  only,  but  after- 
wards for  a  long  time. 

But  I  have  been  satisfied  now  for  many  years,  — 

and  wonder  almost  that  I  ever  could  have  been  otherwise,  — 
that  Ordination  was  never  meant  to  be  closed  against  those 
who,  having  been  conscientious  members  of  the  Church  be- 
fore, and  wishing  in  earnest  to  be  ministers  of  the  Church 
now,  holding  its  truths  and  sympathizing  in  its  spirit,  yet  can- 
not yield  an  active  belief  to  the  words  of  every  part  of  the 
Articles  and  Liturgy  as  true,  without  qualification  or  explana- 
tion. And  I  think  so  on  historical  as  well  as  on  k  priori 
grounds ;  on  historical,  —  from  the  fact  that  the  subscriptions 
were  made  more  stringent  in  their  form  to  meet  the  case  of 
those  whose  minds,  or  rather  tempers,  were  so  uncomplying, 
that  they  would  use  in  the  service  of  the  Church  no  expres- 
sions which  they  did  not  approve  of;  and  therefore  the  party 
in  power,  to  secure  the  conformity,  required  a  pledge  of 
approbation ;  and  also  from  the  expressed  opinion  of  Bull, 
Usher,  and  others  ;  opinions  not  at  all  to  be  taken  to  such  an 
extent  as  if  the  Articles  were  Articles  of  peace  merely,  but 
abundantly  asserting  that  a  whole  Church  never  can  be  ex- 
pected to  agree  in  the  absolute  truth  of  such  a  number  of 
propositions  as  are  contained  in  the  Articles  and  Liturgy. 
This  consideration  seems  to  me  also  decisive  on  a  priori 
grounds.  For  otherwise  the  Church  could  by  necessity 
receive  into  the  ministry  only  men  of  dull  minds  or  dull  con- 
sciences ;  of  dull,  nay,  almost  of  dishonest  minds,  if  they  can 
persuade  themselves  that  they  actually  agree  in  every  mi- 
nute particular  with  any  great  number  of  human  proposi- 
tions ;  of  dull  consciences,  if  exercising  their  minds  freely  and 
yet  believing  that  the  Church  requires  the  total  adhesion  of 
the  understanding,  they  still,  for  considerations  of  their  own 
convenience,  enter  into  the  ministry  in  her  despite. 

You  will  say  that  this  makes  the  degree  of  adhesion  re- 
quired indefinite,  and  so  it  must  be :  yet  these  things,  so  seem- 
ingly indefinite,  are  not  really  so  to  an  honest  and  sensible 
U*  K 


162  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

mind ;  for  such  a  mind  knows  whether  it  is  really  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  Church  in  its  main  faith  and  feelings ;  and,  if 
it  be  not,  then  subscription  would  indeed  be  deceitful ;  but,  if 
it  be,  to  refuse  subscription  would,  I  think,  be  at  once  unjust 
to  the  Church  and  to  itself. 

Enough,  however,  of  this ;  I  earnestly  hope  and  pray  that 
your  entrance  into  the  ministry  may  be  to  God's  glory,  to  the 
good  of  His  Church,  and  to  your  own  great  blessing.  To 
have  a  ministry  in  the  Church  is  a  great  honor,  and  a  great 
responsibility  ;  yet  in  both  is  it  far  inferior  to  the  privilege  of 
being  a  member  of  the  Church.  In  our  heavenly  common- 
wealth the  Jus  Civitatis  is  a  thousand  times  greater  than  the 
Jus  Honorum ;  and  he  who  most  magnifies  the  solemnity  of 
Baptism,  will  be  inch'ned  to  value  most  truly  the  far  inferior 
solemnity  of  Ordination. 

You  are  entering  on  an  office  extinct  in  all  but  name.  If 
it  could  be  revived  in  power,  it  would  be  one  of  the  greatest 
blessings  that  could  be  conferred  on  the  Church.  I  wish  you 

would  talk  to about  this ;  and  if  a  book  on  this  point 

could  be  got  up  between  us,  I  think  it  could  excite  no  offence, 
and  might  lead  to  very  great  good.  God  bless  you  ever  in 
this  and  in  all  your  undertakings,  through  Jesus  Christ 

CCXH. 

(In  answer  to  a  request  for  a  subscription  to  a  church.) 

Fox  How,  December  22, 1839. 

Your  letter  followed  me  hither  from  Rugby,  and  I  only 
reply  to  it,  that  you  may  not  think  me  neglectful  if  I  delayed 
my  answer  till  my  return  to  Warwickshire. 

I  shall  be  happy  to  subscribe  towards  the  endowment  of  the 
Church  and  not  towards  the  building.  My  reason  for  this 
distinction  is,  that  I  think  in  all  cases  the  right  plan  to  pursue 
is  to  raise  funds  in  the  first  instance  for  a  clergyman,  and  to 
procure  for  him  a  definitely  marked  district  as  his  cure.  The 
real  Church  being  thus  founded,  if  money  can  also  be  pro- 
cured for  the  material  Church,  so  much  the  better.  If  not,  I 
would  wish  to  sec  any  building  in  the  district  licensed  for  the 
temporary  performance  of  Divine  Service,  feeling  perfectly 
sure  that  the  zeal  and  munificence  of  the  congregation  would 
in  the  course  of  years  raise  a  far  more  ornamental  building 
than  can  ever  be  raised  by  public  subscription ;  and  that,  in 
the  mean  time,  there  might  be  raised  by  subscription  an  ade- 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  163 

quate  fund  for  the  maintenance  of  a  clergyman  ;  whereas,  on 
the  present  system,  it  seems  perfectly  hopeless  by  any  sub- 
scriptions in  one  generation  to  provide  both  clergymen  and 
churches  in  numbers  equal  to  the  wants  of  the  country. 

I  should  not  have  troubled  you  with  my  opinions,  which  I 
am  aware  are  of  no  importance  to  you,  did  I  not  wish  to  ex- 
plain the  reason  which  makes  me,  in  such  cases,  always  desir- 
ous of  contributing  to  the  endowment  of  a  minister  rather  than 
to  the  building. 

CCXIII.       TO    THE    REV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

Fox  How,  December  29,  1839. 

I  retained  the  benefit  of  my  continental  tour 

throughout  the  half-year,  insomuch  that  at  the  very  end  of  it, 
after  the  examination,  I  felt  as  if  I  was  not  entitled  to  my 
vacation,  because  I  was  so  perfectly  untired  by  my  past 
work.  This  alone  could  tell  you  that  the  school  had  gone  on 
quietly,  as  was  the  case .It  seems  to  me  that  peo- 
ple are  not  enough  aware  of  the  monstrous  state  of  society, 
absolutely  without  a  parallel  in  the  history  of  the  world,  — 
with  a  population  poor,  miserable,  and  degraded  in  body  and 
mind,  as  much  as  if  they  were  slaves,  and  yet  called  freemen, 
and  having  a  power  as  such  of  concerting  and  combining 
plans  of  risings,  which  makes  them  ten  times  more  dangerous 
than  slaves.  And  the  hopes  entertained  by  many  of  the 
effects  to  be  wrought  by  new  churches  and  schools,  while  the 
social  evils  of  their  condition  are  left  uncorrected,  appear  to 
me  to  be  utterly  wild.  Meanwhile  here,  as  usual,  we  seem  to 
be  in  another  world,  for  the  quietness  of  the  valleys  and  the 
comparative  comfort  and  independence  of  this  population  are 
a  delightful  contrast  to  what  one  finds  almost  everywhere  else. 

We  have  had  heavy  rains  and  a  flood,  but  now  both  are 
gone,  and  the  weather  is  beautiful,  and  the  country  most  mag- 
nificent — -  snow  on  all  the  high  hills,  but  none  on  the  low  hills 
or  in  the  valleys. 

CCXIV.       TO    JAMES   MARSHALL,    ESQ. 

Fox  How,  January  1,  1840. 

I  may  be  wrong  as   to  the  necessity  of  gaining 

more  information,  but  I  think  I  am  not  wrong  in  wishing  to 
secure  a  more  extensive  and  universal  co-operation,  before 


164  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

anything  is  ventured  remedially,  —  I  would  join  half  a  dozen 
men,  or  even  fewer,  if  the  object  be  merely  to  collect  and  cir- 
culate facts  such  as  may  fix  the  public  attention ;  but,  if  more 
be  proposed  to  be  done,  I  dread  the  thing's  assuming  a  party 
character,  and  I  could  not  myself  undertake  to  sanction  a  sort 
of  political  mission  system,  without  knowing  more  exactly 
than  I  can  well  expect  to  know,  the  characters  and  discretion 
and  opinions  of  the  agents  to  be  employed.  And,  even  if  I 
could  depend  on  these,  yet  I  do  not  think  that  they  could  be 
successful,  for  the  evil  is  far  deeper,  as  I  believe,  than  can  be 
cured  without  the  aid  of  the  Government  and  Legislature.  I 
quite  agree  with  you  in  the  wisdom  of  forming  local  societies 
and  a  general  Central  Society ;  and  I  should  wish  the  local 
societies  to  consist  of  men  of  all  classes,  including  certainly 
the  working  classes ;  every  possible  information  collected  by 
such  societies  would  be  most  valuable,  but  why  should  they 
go  on  to  the  farther  step  of  endeavoring,  by  tracts  or  mission- 
aries, to  influence  the  mass  of  the  working  classes,  or  to  pro- 
pose remedies  ?  For  instance,  in  Leeds,  I  can  conceive  that 
benevolent  men  among  the  highest  Conservatives,  and  among 
the  clergy  especially,  would  join  a  society  which  really  only 
sought  to  collect  information ;  but  they  could  not,  and  would 
not,  if  it  endeavored  to  do  more,  because  the  differe/ices  of 
opinion  between  you  and  them  render  it  impossible  for  you  to 
agree  in  what  you  should  disseminate.  The  Society  would 
therefore  consist,  I  think,  exclusively  of  men  of  what  is  called 
the  Liberal  party,  and  principally  of  Dissenters ;  and  this 
would  be,  I  think,  a  great  pity,  and  would  cripple  our  opera- 
tions sadly.  I  confess  I  am  very  suspicious  of  bodies  of  men 
belonging  all  to  one  party,  even  although  that  party  be  the 
one  with  which  I  should  in  the  main  myself  agree,  and  for 
this  reason,  I  as  little  like  the  composition  of  the  University 
of  London,  as  I  do  that  of  the  University  of  Oxford. 

CCXV.      TO    THE   REV.   J.   HEARN. 

Fox  How,  Ambleside,  January  6, 1840. 

I  must  not  let  more  of  my  time  at  Fox  How  pass  away 
without  writing  to  you,  for  I  wish  much  to  know  how  you  are, 
and  how  you  bear  the  winter.  Your  letter  of  September  7th, 
gave  me  a  better  account  of  you  than  your  former  note  had 
done,  and  I  was  very  glad  to  learn  that  you  were  better 
Still  you  did  not  write  as  if  you  were  quite  well,  and  I  do  not 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  165 

like  to  hear  of  any  disorder  or  languor  hanging  about  you, 
however  slight ;  for  you  are  not  old  enough  to  feel  any  natural 
decay,  and  slight  indisposition  requires  to  be  watched,  lest  it 
should  become  serious.  But  I  love  to  think  of  the  quiet  of 
Hatford  for  you,  which,  if  your  complaints  are  bodily  merely, 
must  be  very  good  for  you.  If  you  feel  any  nervousness  or 
oppression  of  spirits,  then  I  suspect  a  little  more  of  the  stir  of 
life  would  be  very  good  for  you ;  and  we  should  be  delighted 
to  see  you  and  Mrs.  Hearn  and  your  little  ones  at  Rugby, 
where  you  might  have  enough  of  movement  around  you,  and 
yet  might  be  yourself  as  much  at  rest  as  you  chose.  I  some- 
times think,  that  if  I  were  at  all  in  nervous  spirits,  the  solemn 
beauty  of  this  valley  would  be  almost  overwhelming,  and  that 
brick  streets  and  common  hedgerows  would  be  better  for  me  ; 
just  as  now,  whilst  my  life  is  necessarily  so  stirring,  and  my 
health  so  good,  there  is  an  extreme  delight  in  the  peacefulness 
of  our  life  here,  and  in  the  quiet  of  all  around  us.  Last  night 
we  were  out  on  the  gravel  walk  for  nearly  half  an  hour, 
watching  the  northern  lights.  I  never  saw  them  so  beautiful : 
the  sky  in  the  north  behind  the  mountains  was  all  of  a  silvery 
light,  while  in  other  parts  it  was  dark  as  usual,  and  all  set  with 
its  stars ;  then,  from  the  mass  of  light  before  us,  there  shot  up 
continually  long  white  pillars  or  needles,  reaching  to  the  zenith  ; 
and  then  again  fleeces  of  light  would  go  quivering  like  a 
pulse  all  over  the  sky,  till  they  died  away  in  the  far  south. 
And  to-day  there  is  not  a  cloud  to  be  seen,  and  the  mountain 
before  our  windows  reflects  the  sun's  light  upon  us  like  a 
great  mirror,  we  ourselves  being  in  the  shade,  for  the  sun 

soon  sets  on  this  side  of  the  valley 

P.  S Have  you   seen   Taylor's   book   on   Early 

Christianity  ?  With  much  allowance  for  an  unpleasant  man- 
ner, and  some  other  faults,  yet  I  think  he  is  right  in  his 
main  point,  and  the  question  at  issue  is  really  one  of  Chris- 
tianity or  of  the  Church  system Because  I  believe 

the  New  Testament  to  represent  Christianity  truly,  therefore 
I  reject  the  Church  system,  and  I  think  that  the  Church  of 
England  does  exactly  the  same  thing  for  the  same  reason. 
But  that  the  Church  has  always  faithfully  preserved  the 
Christian  doctrine  in  other  points,  and  much  of  the  purity  of 
Christian  holiness,  I  acknowledge  thankfully  ;  and  therefore, 
although  I  think  that  in  one  point  Antichrist  was  in  the 
Church  from  the  first  century,  yet  God  forbid  that  I  should 
<;all  the  Church  Antichrist.  It  preserved  much  truth  and 


166  LIFE  OF  DR.  AENOLD. 

much  holiness,  with  one  fatal  error,  subversive,  indeed,  in  its 
consequences,  both  of  truth  and  goodness,  but  which  has  not 
always  developed  its  full  consequences,  nor  was  even  dis- 
tinctly conscious  of  its  own  ground.  But  that  the  modern 
Newmanites  are  far  worse  than  the  early  Church  writers  is 
certain,  and  many  of  their  doctrines  are  disclaimed  and  con- 
demned by  those  writers ;  only  in  their  peculiar  system,  they 
are  the  development  of  that  system  which,  in  the  early 
Church,  existed  in  the  bud  only  ;  and  which,  as  being  directly 
opposed  to  our  Lord's  religion,  as  taught  by  Him  and  His 
Apostles,  I  call  Antichrist. 

CCXVI.       TO   J.    C.    PLATT,    ESQ. 

Fox  How,  January  12,  1840. 

It  is  a  very  long  time  since  I  have  written  to  you  ;  your 
last  letter  to  me  being  dated,  I  am  ashamed  to  say,  nearly  a 
year  ago.  But  I  intended  to  write  to  you  from  this  place  in  the 
summer ;  and  then  my  stay  here  was  so  short,  that  I  had  no 
time  for  anything,  the  greater  part  of  my  holidays  having 
been  passed  on  the  Continent. 

I  think  that  I  have  to  thank  you  for  introducing  so  much 
of  my  little  Lecture,  on  the  Divisions  of  Knowledge,  into  the 
Penny  Magazine.  I  printed  it,  thinking  that  it  might  be 
useful  to  the  members  of  Mechanics'  Institutions  ;  but  having 
printed  it  at  Rugby,  and  no  publisher  having  an  interest  in  it, 
and  it  not  having  been  advertised,  it  has  had,  I  suppose,  but 
a  very  limited  circulation.  I  was  very  glad  therefore  to  see 
such  large  extracts  from  it  in  the  Penny  Magazine,  which 
must  have  brought  it  to  the  knowledge  of  many  readers, 
although  perhaps  not  exactly  of  that  class  for  whom  I  most 
designed  it 

I  shall  be  very  glad  if  you  can  give  me  good  accounts  of 
yourself  and  all  your  family.  Our  life  goes  on  with  very 
little  variety  beyond  its  own  even  alternations  of  vacation  and 
half-year ;  and  I  could  be  too  happy  if  private  comfort  did 
not  seem  almost  inconsistent  with  justice,  while  the  state  of 
public  affairs  is  so  troubled.  If  you  see  the  Herts  Reformer, 
you  will  have  observed  that  I  have  still  continued  from  time 
to  time  to  write  on  my  old  subject,  and  latterly  I  have  been 
trying  to  form  a  society  to  collect  information,  and  draw  public 
attention  to  the  question.  The  difficulties  are  very  great,  but 
I  do  hope  that  something  will  be  done,  for  I  see  that  men  are 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  167 

interested  in  the  question  who  have  a  personal  interest  in 
manufactures,  and  a  practical  knowledge  of  the  state  of  the 
people.  Such  men  may  really  do  great  good,  but  I  can  do 
nothing  more  than  pull  the  bell,  as  it  were,  and  try  to  give  the 
alarm  as  to  the  magnitude  of  the  danger.  I  was  very  much 

struck  with  Mr.  Gill's  speech  the  other  day  in  answer  to . 

I  do  not  know  how  you  find  it,  but  for  myself  I  cannot  go 
cordially  along  with  the  Radical  party,  philosophical  or  other- 
wise, even  on  points  where  in  the  main  I  agree  with  them. 
They  all  seem  to  me  more  or  less  overrun  with  two  things, 
Benthamism  and  Political  Economy;  and  Bentham  I  have 
always  thought  a  bad  man,  and  also,  as  Carlyle  called  him  in 
a  letter  to  a  friend  of  mine,  "  a  bore  of  the  first  magnitude." 
I  believe  I  agree  with  the  Radicals  as  to  the  mischief  of  the 
Corn  Laws ;  yet  I  cannot  but  think  that  the  Chartists  have 
some  reason  in  their  complaint,  that  the  clamor  about  the 
Corn  Laws  is  rather  leading  men  off  on  a  false  scent,  and 
that  the  Repeal  will  not  benefit  the  working  man  so  much 
as  it  is  expected.  You  will  not,  however,  suspect  me  of 

thinking  that  the  true  scent  is  to  be  found  in  following 's 

notions  of  universal  suffrage  and  universal  plunder.  He  and 
his  companions  continually  remind  me  of  slaves,  of  men  so 
brutalized  by  their  seclusion  from  the  pale  of  society,  that 
they  have  lost  all  value  for  the  knowledge  and  morality  of  the 
civilized  world,  and  have  really  no  more  ideas  of  the  use  to 
be  made  of  all  the  manifold  inventions  and  revelations  of  six 
thousand  years,  than  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  dog  had  of  the  value 
of  his  master's  problems.  The  cry  against  property  is  just 
the  cry  of  a  slave,  who,  being  incapable  of  holding  anything 
himself  as  his  own,  has  no  notion  of  any  harm  in  stealing,  — 
stealing,  in  fact,  is  hardly  a  word  in  his  language.  It  is  cer- 
tain, I  suppose,  that  a  certain  moral  and  social  training  are 
necessary  in  order  to  enable  us  to  appreciate  truths  which,  to 
those  who  have  had  that  training,  are  the  very  life  of  their 
life.  And  again,  there  is  a  course  of  training  so  mischievous, 
and  degradation  and  distress  are  such  a  curse,  as  absolutely 
to  make  men  believe  a  lie,  and  to  take  away  that  common 
standing-ground  of  a  general  sense  of  the  principles  of  right 
and  wrong,  on  which  we  meet  uncorrupted  ignorance,  and  so 
are  able  to  lead  it  on  to  a  sense  of  the  purest  truths  and  the 
highest.  You  mentioned  Laing's  book  on  Norway  to  me.  I 
have  got  it,  and  like  it  very  much  ;  but  it  is  easier  to  admire, 
and  almost  envy  the  example  of  Norwegian  society,  than  to 


168  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

apply  it  to  our  own  state  here.  It  would  be  a  great  comfort 
to  me  if  your  experience  and  observation  have  led  you  to  look 
on  matters  more  hopefully ;  and  yet  no  man  feels  more  keenly 
than  I  do  the  vast  amount  of  goodness  and  energy  which  we 
have  amongst  us.  How  noble,  after  all,  is  the  sight  of  these 
Trials  for  high  treason.  Such  deliberation  and  dignity,  and 
perfect  fairness,  and  even  gentleness  on  the  part  of  the  Gov- 
ernment and  the  law,  in  dealing  with  guilt  so  recent,  so  great, 
and  so  palpable.  Therefore  we  cannot  be  without  hope  that, 
with  God's  blessing,  we  may  get  over  our  evils,  although  I 
own  with  me  that  fear  is  stronger  than  hope. 

CCXVII.      TO    THOMAS    CABLYLE,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  January,  1840. 

A  note  of  yours  to  our  common  acquaintance,  Mr.  James 
Marshall,  furnishes,  I  believe,  the  only  shadow  of  a  pretence 
which  I  could  claim  for  addressing  you,  according  to  the  ordi- 
nary forms  of  society.  But  I  should  be  ashamed,  to  you 
above  all  men,  to  avail  myself  of  a  mere  pretence ;  and  my 
true  reason  for  addressing  you  is,  because  I  believe  you  sym- 
pathize with  me  on  that  most  important  subject,  the  welfare  of 
the  poorer  classes,  and  because  I  know,  from  your  history  of 
the  French  Revolution,  that  you  understand  the  real  nature 
and  magnitude  of  the  evil,  which  so  many  appear  to  me 
neither  to  comprehend  nor  to  feel. 

I  have  been  trying,  hitherto  with  no  success,  to  form  a  So- 
ciety, the  object  of  which  should  be  to  collect  information  as 
to  every  point  in  the  condition  of  the  poor  throughout  the 
kingdom,  and  to  call  public  attention  to  it  by  every  possible 
means,  whether  by  the  press,  or  by  yearly  or  quarterly  meet- 
ings. And  as  I  am  most  anxious  to  secure  the  co-operation 
of  good  men  of  all  parties,  it  seems  to  me  a  necessary  condi- 
tion that  the  Society  should  broach  no  theories,  and  propose 
no  remedies ;  that  it  should  simply  collect  information,  and 
rouse  the  attention  of  the  country  to  the  infinite  importance 
of  the  subject  You  know  full  well  that  wisdom  in  the  higher  ( 
sense  and  practical  knowledge  are  rarely  found  in  the  same 
man  ;  and,  if  any  theory  be  started,  which  contains  something 
not  suited  to  practice,  all  the  so-called  practical  men  cry  out 
against  the  folly  of  all  theories,  and  conclude  themselves,  and 
lead  the  vulgar  to  the  conclusion,  that  because  one  particular 
remedy  has  been  prescribed  ignorantly,  no  remedy  is  needed 
or  at  least  none  is  practicable. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  169 

I  see  by  the  newspapers  that  you  are  writing  on  Chartism, 
and  I  am  heartily  glad  to  hear  of  it.  I  shall  be  curious  to 
know  whether  you  have  any  definite  notions  as  to  the  means  of 
relieving  the  fearful  evils  of  our  social  condition,  or  whether 
you,  like  myself,  are  overwhelmed  by  the  magnitude  of  the 
mischief,  and  are  inclined  to  say,  like  the  Persian  fatalist  in 

Herodotus,  e^dicrrf]  68vvf)  TroXXa  (frpoveovra  p.rj8evos  Kparfftv. 

I  have  no  sort  of  desire  to  push  my  proposal  about  a  Soci- 
ety, and  would  gladly  be  guided  by  wiser  men  as  to  what  is 
best  to  be  done.  But  I  cannot,  I  am  sure,  be  mistaken  as  to 
this,  that  the  state  of  society  in  England  at  this  moment  was 
never  yet  paralleled  in  history  ;  and  though  I  have  no  stake 
on  the  country  as  far  as  property  is  concerned,  yet  I  have  a 
wife  and  a  large  family  of  children  ;  and  I  do  not  wish  to  lose, 
either  for  them  or  myself,  all  those  thousand  ties,  so  noble  and 
so  sacred  and  so  dear,  which  bind  us  to  our  country,  as  she 
was  and  as  she  is,  with  all  her  imperfections  and  difficulties. 
If  you  think  that  anything  can  be  done,  which  could  interest 
any  other  person  on  the  subject,  I  should  be  delighted  to  give 
aid  in  any  possible  manner  to  the  extent  of  my  abilities.  I 
owe  you  many  apologies  for  writing  thus  to  a  perfect  stranger, 
—  but  ever  since  I  read  your  History  of  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, I  have  longed  to  become  acquainted  with  you ;  because 
I  found  in  that  book  an  understanding  of  the  true  nature  of 
history,  such  as  it  delighted  my  heart  to  meet  with ;  and 
having  from  a  child  felt  the  deepest  interest  in  the  story  of  the 
French  Revolution,  and  read  pretty  largely  about  it,  I  was 
somewhat  in  a  condition  to  appreciate  the  richness  of  your 
knowledge,  and  the  wisdom  of  your  judgments.  I  do  not 
mean  that  I  agree  with  you  in  all  these ;  in  some  instances 
I  should  differ  very  decidedly ;  but  still  the  wisdom  of  the 
book,  as  well  as  its  singular  eloquence  and  poetry,  was  such 
a  treasure  to  me  as  I  have  rarely  met  with,  and  am  not  at  all 
likely  to  meet  with  again. 

CCXVIII.      TO    JAMES    MARSHALL,    ESQ. 

Fox  How,  January  23,  1840. 

I  thank  you  much  for  your  last  letter,  and  I  assure  you 
that  I  attach  a  great  value  to  such  communications  from  you. 
The  scheme  of  a  newspaper  I  actually  tried  myself  nine  years 
ago,  and  spent  above  two  hundred  pounds  upon  it.  I  was  not 
so  foolish  as  to  think  that  I  could  keep  up  a  newspaper ;  but  I 

VOL.  ii.  15 


170  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

was  willing  to  bell  the  cat,  hoping  that  some  who  were  able 
might  take  up  what  I  had  begun.  But  no  one  did,  and  the 
thing  died  a  natural  death  at  the  end  of  two  months.  I  feel, 
however,  so  strongly  the  desirableness  of  such  an  attempt, 
that  I  am  ready  again  to  contribute  money  or  writing,  or  both, 
to  the  same  cause ;  and  I  should  be  doubly  glad  if  we  could 
effect  both  the  objects  you  speak  of,  a  daily  paper  and  a  weekly 
one.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  desirable  that  at  this  point  I 
should  make  somewhat  of  a  confession  of  my  political  faith 
to  you,  that  you  may  know  how  far  my  views  would  coincide 
with  yours. 

My  differences  with  the  Liberal  Party  would  turn,  I  think, 
chiefly  on  two  points.  First,  I  agree  with  Carlyle,  in  think- 
ing that  they  greatly  overestimate  Bentham,  and  also  that 
they  overrate  the  Political  Economists  generally ;  not  that  I 
doubt  the  ability  of  those  writers,  or  the  truth  of  their  conclu- 
sions, as  far  as  regards  their  own  science,  —  but  I  think  that 
the  summum  bonum  of  their  science,  and  of  human  life,  are 
not  identical ;  and  therefore  many  questions  in  which  free- 
trade  is  involved,  and  the  advantages  of  large  capital,  &c., 
although  perfectly  simple  in  an  economical  point  of  view, 
become,  when  considered  politically,  very  complex ;  and  the 
economical  good  is  very  often  from  the  neglect  of  other  points 
made  in  practice  a  direct  social  evil. 

But  my  second  difference  is  greater  by  much  than  this ;  I 
look  to  the  full  development  of  the  Christian  Church  in  its 
perfect  form,  as  the  Kingdom  of  God,  for  the  most  effective 
removal  of  ah  evil,  and  promotion  of  all  good ;  and  I  can 
understand  no  perfect  Church  or  perfect  State,  without  their 
blending  into  one  in  this  ultimate  form.  I  believe,  farther, 
that  our  fathers  at  the  Reformation  stumbled  accidentally,  or 
rather  were  unconsciously  led  by  God's  Providence,  to  the 
declaration  of  the  great  principle  of  this  system,  the  doctrine 
of  the  King's  Supremacy  ;  —  which  is,  in  fact,  no  other  than 
an  assertion  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Church  or  Christian 
society,  over  the  clergy,  and  a  denial  of  that  which  I  hold  to 
be  one  of  the  most  mischievous  falsehoods  ever  broached, — 
that  the  government  of  the  Christian  Church  is  vested  by 
divine  right  in  the  clergy,  and  that  the  close  corporation  of 
bishops  and  presbyters,  —  whether  one  or  more,  makes  no 
difference,  —  is  and  ever  ought  to  be  the  representative  of  the 
Christian  Church.  Holding  this  doctrine  as  the  very  corner- 
stone of  all  my  political  belief,  I  am  equally  opposed  to  Popery, 


LIFE   OF    DR;  ARNOLD.  171 

High-Churcliism,  and  the  claims  of  the  Scotch  Presbyteries, 
on  the  one  hand ;  and  to  all  the  Independents,  and  advocates 
of  the  separation,  as  they  call  it,  of  Church  and  State,  on  the 
other  ;  the  first  setting  up  a  priesthood  in  the  place  of  the 
Church,  and  the  other  lowering  necessarily  the  objects  of  Law 
and  Government,  and  reducing  them  to  a  mere  system  of 
police,  while  they  profess  to  wish  to  make  the  Church  purer. 
And  my  fondness  for  Greek  and  German  literature  has  made 
me  very  keenly  alive  to  the  mental  defects  of  the  Dissenters 
as  a  body ,  the  characteristic  faults  of  the  English  mind,  — 
narrowness  of  view,  and  a  want  of  learning  and  a  sound  crit- 
ical spirit,  —  being  exhibited  to  my  mind  in  the  Dissenters 
almost  in  caricature.  It  is  nothing  but  painful  to  me  to  feel 
this ;  because  no  man  appreciates  more  than  I  do  the  many 
great  services  which  the  Dissenters  have  rendered,  both  to 
the  general  cause  of  Christianity,  and  especially  to  the  cause 
of  justice  and  good  government  in  our  own  country  ;  and  my 
sense  of  the  far  less  excusable  errors,  and  almost  uniformly 
mischievous  conduct  of  the  High-Church  party,  is  as  strong 
as  it  can  be  of  any  one  thing  in  the  world. 

Again,  the  principle  of  Conservatism  has  always  appeared 
to  me  to  be  not  only  foolish,  but  to  be  actually  felo  de  se ;  it 
destroys  what  it  loves,  because  it  will  not  mend  it.  But  I 
cordially  agree  with  Niebuhr,  —  who  in  all  such  questions  is 
to  me  the  greatest  of  all  authorities ;  because  together  with 
an  ability  equal  to  the  highest,  he  had  an  universal  knowledge 
of  political  history,  far  more  profound  than  was  ever  pos- 
sessed by  any  other  man,  —  that  every  new  institution  should 
be  but  a  fuller  development  of,  or  an  addition  to,  what  already 
exists ;  and  that  if  things  have  come  to  such  a  pass  in  a 
country,  that  all  its  past  history  and  associations  are  cast 
away  as  merely  bad,  Reform  in  such  a  country  is  impossible. 
I  believe  it  to  be  necessary,  and  quite  desirable,  that  the  pop- 
ular power  in  a  state  should,  in  the  perfection  of  things,  be 
paramount  to  every  other ;  but  this  supremacy  need  not,  and 
ought  not,  I  think,  to  be  absolute ;  and  monarchy,  and  an  aris- 
tocracy of  birth,  —  as  distinguished  from  one  of  wealth  or  of 
office,  —  appear  to  me  to  be  two  precious  elements  which  still 
exist  in  most  parts  of  Europe,  and  to  lose  which,  as  has  been 
done  unavoidably  in  America,  would  be  rather  our  insanity 
than  our  misfortune.  But  the  insolencies  of  our  aristocracy 
no  one  feels  more  keenly  than  I  do :  the  scandalous  ex- 


172  LIFE  OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

emption*  of  the  peers  from  all  ignominious  punishments  short 
of  death,  —  so  that  for  a  most  aggravated  manslaughter  a  peer 
must  escape  altogether,  as  the  old  Lord  Byron  did,  or  as  the 
Duchess  of  Kingston  did,  for  bigamy ;  —  the  insolent  practice 
of  allowing  peers  to  vote  in  criminal  trials  on  their  honor, 
while  other  men  vote  on  their  oath ;  the  absurdity  of  proxy 
voting,  and  some  other  things  of  the  same  nature.  All  theory 
and  all  experience  show,  that  if  a  system  goes  on  long  un- 
reformed,  it  is  not  then  reformed,  but  destroyed.  And  so,  I 
believe,  it  will  be  with  our  Aristocracy  and  our  Church; 
because  I  fear  that  neither  will  be  wise  in  time.  But  still, 
looking  upon  both  as  positive  blessings  —  and  capable — the 
latter  especially  —  of  doing  good  that  can  be  done  by  no  other 
means,  I  love  and  would  maintain  both,  not  as  a  concession  or 
a  compromise,  but  precisely  with  the  same  zeal  that  I  would 
reform  both,  and  enlarge  the  privileges  and  elevate  the  condi- 
tion of  the  mass  of  the  community.  As  to  your  difference  of 
opinion  with  Carlyle  about  the  craving  for  political  rights,  I 
agree  with  you  fully.  But  I  think  that,  before  distress  has 
once  got  in,  a  people  whose  physical  wants  are  well  supplied, 
may  be  kept  for  centuries  by  a  government  without  a  desire 
for  political  power :  but,  when  the  ranks  immediately  above 
them  have  been  long  contending  earnestly  for  this  very 
power,  and  physical  distress  makes  them  impatient  of  their 
actual  condition,  then  men  are  apt,  I  think,  to  attach  even  an 
overvalue  to  the  political  remedy ;  and  it  is  then  quite  too  late 
to  try  to  fatten  them  into  obedience :  other  parts  of  their 
nature  have  learnt  to  desire,  and  will  have  their  desire 
gratified. 

CCXIX.      TO    SIR   THOMAS    PASLET,   BART. 

Fox  How,  January  25, 1840. 

On  the  difficulties  of  Scripture  I  met ,  as  to 

the  matter  of  fact,  maintaining  that  the  differences  of  interpre- 
tation are  very  few  in  number  ;  and  that  many  of  the  greatest 
points  at  issue  are  altogether  foreign  to  the  interpretation  of 
Scripture,  and  are  argued  upon  other  grounds ;  and  that 
where  the  Scripture  is  really  difficult,  there  the  boasted 
authority  of  the  Church  gives  no  help,  —  the  early  Christian 

*  This,  so  far  as  it  is  here  correctly  stated,  was  abolished  by  4  &  6  Viet 
cap.  22. 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  173 

writers  having  been  quite  as  much  puzzled  as  ourselves,  when 
they  did  not  attempt  to  clear  themselves  by  mere  guesses,  and 

those  generally  very  bad  ones I  have  been  working 

hard  every  morning  at  my  History,  and  have  wanted  the 
evenings  for  my  letters  :  so  that  we  really  declined  dining  out 
after  the  first  half  of  our  stay.  The  second  volume  is  now 
finished,  and  I  have  written  besides  four  Sermons,  three  Let- 
ters to  the  Herts  Reformer,  and  letters  of  other  sorts,  of 
course,  without  number.  I  have  had  a  considerable  corre- 
spondence with  Mr,  James  Marshall,  about  our  plan  of  a 
Society  for  obtaining  and  disseminating  information  about  the 
poorer  classes :  he  is  deeply  interested  in  the  question.  In- 
deed, it  is  only  a  wonder  to  me  that  every  one  is  not  ener- 
getic on  this  matter;  but  the  security  of  those  who  were 
"  buying,  selling,  planting,  and  building,  and  knew  not  till  the 
flood  came,  and  swept  them  all  away,"  is  to  be  repeated,  I 
suppose,  or  rather  will  be  repeated,  before  each  of  our  Lord's 
comings,  be  they  as  many  as  they  may.  I  have  often  thought 
of  New  Zealand,  and  if  they  would  make  you  Governor  and 
me  Bishop,  I  would  go  out,  I  think,  to-morrow,  —  not  to  return 
after  so  many  years,  but  to  live  and  die  there,  if  there  was  any 
prospect  of  rearing  any  hopeful  form  of  society.  I  have  actu- 
ally got  two  hundred  acres  in  New  Zealand,  and  I  confess  that 
my  thoughts  often  turn  thitherward ;  but  that  vile  population 
of  runaway  convicts  and  others  who  infest  the  country,  deter 
me  more  than  anything  else,  as  the  days  of  Roman  Procon- 
suls are  over,  who  knew  so  well  how  to  clear  a  country  of 
such  nuisances.  Now,  I  suppose  they  will,  as  they  find  it 
convenient,  come  in  and  settle  down  quietly  amongst  the  colo- 
nists, as  Morgan  did  at  Kingston  ;  and  the  ruffian  and  outlaw 
of  yesterday  becomes  to-day,  according  to  our  Jacobin  notions 
of  citizenship,  a  citizen,  and  perhaps  a  magistrate  and  a  legis- 
lator. I  imagine  that  the  Jamaica  society  has  never  recov- 
ered the  mixture  of  Buccaneer  blood,  and  it  is  in  that  way 
that  colonial  societies  become  so  early  corrupted,  because  all 
the  refuse  of  old  societies  find  such  easy  access  into  them. 

I  am  very  glad,  indeed,  that  you  like  my  Prophecy  Ser- 
mons :  the  points  in  particular  on  which  I  did  not  wish  to 
enter,  if  I  could  help  it,  but  which  very  likely  I  shall  be 
forced  to  touch  on,  relate  to  the  latter  chapters  of  Daniel, 
Avhich,  if  genuine,  would  be  a  clear  exception  to  my  canon  of 
interpretation,  as  there  can  be  no  reasonable  spiritual  mean- 
ino-  made  out  of  the  Kings  of  the  North  and  South.  But  I 

o  o 

15*  K 


174  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD 

have  long  thought  that  the  greater  part  of  the  book  of  Daniel 
is  most  certainly  a  very  late  work  of  the  time  of  the  Macca- 
bees ;  and  the  pretended  prophecy  about  the  Kings  of  Grecia 
and  Persia,  and  of  the  North  and  South,  is  mere  history,  like 
the  poetical  prophecies  in  Virgil  and  elsewhere.  In  fact  you 
can  trace  distinctly  the  date  when  it  was  written,  because  the 
events  up  to  the  date  are  given  with  historical  minuteness, 
totally  unlike  the  character  of  real  Prophecy  ;  and  beyond 
that  date  all  is  imaginary.  It  is  curious  that  when  there  was 
so  allowed  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  apocryphal  writings, 
under  the  name  of  the  Book  of  Daniel,  —  as  the  Stories  of  the 
apocryphal  Esther,  Susanna,  and  Bel  and  the  Dragon,  —  those 
should  have  been  rejected,  because  they  were  only  known  in 
the  Greek  translation,  and  the  rest,  because  it  happened  to  be 
in  Chaldee,  was  received  at  once  in  the  lump,  and  defended 
as  a  matter  of  faith.  But  the  self-same  criticism  which  has 
established  the  authenticity  of  St  John's  Gospel  against  all 
questionings,  does,  I  think,  equally  prove  the  non-authenticity 
of  great  part  of  Daniel ;  that  there  may  be  genuine  fragments 
in  it,  is  very  likely. 

CCXX.      TO   ARCHDEACON   HARE. 

Fox  How,  January  26, 1840. 

The  Penny  postage  will  allow  me  to  trouble  you  with  a 
question,  which  otherwise  I  should  not  have  thought  it  worth 
while  to  send  to  you.  Wordsworth,  I  think,  told  me,  on  your 
authority,  that  Niebuhr  had  spoken  with  strong  disrespect  of 
Coleridge's  Church  and  State.  Now,  as  I  respect  Coleridge 
exceedingly,  it  pains  me  to  think  that  Niebuhr  should  speak 
with  actual  disrespect  of  any  work  of  his  ;  and  it  seems  to  me 
that  his  habit  of  criticism  was  generally  mild  and  considerate. 
On  the  other  hand,  Coleridge's  Church  and  State  does  seem 
to  me  to  be  historically  very  faulty,  and  this  Niebuhr  would 
feel,  I  doubt  not,  very  keenly.  Can  you  tell  me  what  Nie- 
buhr's  judgment  of  the  book  really  was,  and  on  what  it  was 
founded  ?  * 

You  will  be  glad  to  hear,  I  think,  that  the  volumes 

of  Thirlwall's  Greece  seem  to  me  to  improve  as  the  work  ad- 


*  This  Question  has  been  inserted  merely  as  an  illustration  of  the  jealousy 
with  which  he  regarded  the  reputations  of  men  whom  he  really  reverenced. 
How  far  Niebuhr's  unfavorable  judgment  was  given,  upon  full  deliberation, 
does  not  appear. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  175 

vances.  There  never  could  be  a  doubt  as  to  the  learning  and 
good  sense  of  the  book ;  but  it  seems  to  me  to  be  growing  in 
feeling  and  animation,  and  to  be  now  a  very  delightful  history, 

as  well  as  a  very  valuable  one Mr.  Maurice  wrote 

to  me  the  other  day,  to  say  that  he  had  sent  to  Rugby,  for  me, 
the  first  number  of  the  Educational  Magazine.  I  could  not 
thank  him,  because  I  did  not  know  his  address,  but  I  should 
be  very  sorry  to  appear  inattentive  to  a  man  whom  I  respect 
so  highly  as  I  do  Mr.  Maurice. 

CCXXI.      TO    W.   W.   HULL,    ESQ. 

Fox  How,  January,  24,  1840. 

We  are  going  to  leave  this  place,  if  all  be  well,  on  Monday ; 
and  I  confess  that  it  makes  me  rather  sad  to  see  the  prepara- 
tions for  our  departure,  for  it  is  like  going  out  of  a  very 
quiet  cove  into  a  very  rough  sea ;  and  I  am  every  year 
approaching  nearer  to  that  time  of  life  when  rest  is  more 
welcome  than  exertion.  Yet,  when  I  think  of  what  is  at 
stake  on  that  rough  sea,  I  feel  that  I  have  no  right  to  lie  in 
harbor  idly ;  and  indeed  I  do  yearn  more  than  I  can  say  to 
be  able  to  render  some  service  where  service  is  so  greatly 
needed.  It  is  when  I  indulge  such  wishes  most  keenly,  and 
only  then,  that  strong  political  differences  between  my  friends 
and  myself  are  really  painful ;  because  I  feel  that  not  only 
could  we  not  act  together,  but  there  would  be  no  sympathy 
the  moment  I  were  to  express  anything  beyond  a  general 
sense  of  anxiety  and  apprehension,  in  which  I  suppose  all 
good  men  must  share. 

CCXXII.      TO   MB.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Fox  How,  January  26, 1840. 

We  left  Rugby  this  time  so  early,  that  your  letter  followed 
me  down  here,  and  I  must  have  the  pleasure  of  answering  it 
before  we  go  away,  which  alas !  must  be  to-morrow  morning. 
We  talk  of  going  to  Norwich  for  a  few  days,  to  see  the  Stan- 
leys, and  to  Cambridge,  before  we  settle  at  Rugby ;  and 
really,  in  these  most  troublous  times,  it  seems  more  than  is 
allowable  to  be  living,  as  we  are  here,  in  a  place  of  so  much 
rest  and  beauty. 

Your  letter  interested  me  very  deeply,  and  I  have  thought 
over  what  you  say  very  often.  Yet  I  believe  that  no  man's 


176  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

mind  has  ever  been  more  consciously  influenced  by  others 
than  mine  has  been  in  the  course  of  my  life,  from  the  time 
that  I  first  met  you  at  Corpus.  I  doubt  whether  you  ever 
submitted  to  another  with  the  same  complete  deference  as  I 
did  to  you  when  I  was  an  undergraduate.  So,  afterwards, 
I  looked  up  to  Davison  with  exceeding  reverence,  —  and  to 
Whately.  Nor  do  I  think  that  Keble  himself  has  lived  on 
in  more  habitual  respect  and  admiration  than  I  have,  only 
the  objects  of  these  feelings  have  been  very  different.  At 
this  day,  I  could  sit  at  Bunsen's  feet,  and  drink  in  wisdom, 
with  almost  intense  reverence.  But  I  cannot  reverence  the 
men  whom  Keble  reverences,  and  how  does  he  feel  to  Luther 
and  Milton  ?  It  gives  me  no  pain  and  no  scruple  whatever 
to  differ  from  those  whom,  after  the  most  deliberate  judgment 
that  I  can  form,  I  cannot  find  to  be  worthy  of  admiration. 
Nor  does  their  number  affect  me,  when  all  are  manifestly 
under  the  same  influences,  and  no  one  seems  to  be  a  master 
spirit,  fitted  to  lead  amongst  men.  But  with  wise  men  in 
the  way  of  their  wisdom,  it  would  give  me  .very  great  pain  to 
differ ;  I  can  say  that  truly  with  regard  to  your  Uncle,  even 
more  with  regard  to  Niebuhr.  I  do  not  know  a  single  sub- 
ject on  which  I  have  maintained  really  a  paradox, — that  is, 
on  which  I  have  presumed  to  set  up  my  judgment,  against 
the  concurrent  judgment  of  wise  men,  and  I  trust  I  never 
should  do  it.  But  it  is  surely  not  presumption  to  prefer  a 
foreign  authority  to  one  nearer  home,  when  both  are  in  them- 
selves perfectly  equal.  For  instance,  —  suppose  that  any  point 
in  English  Law,  although  steadily  defended  by  English  law- 
yers, was  at  variance  no  less  decidedly  with  the  practice  of 
the  Roman  Law,  and  condemned  by  the  greatest  jurists  and 
philosophers  of  other  countries,  —  there  can  be  no  presump- 
tion, as  it  seems  to  me,  in  taking  either  side  strongly,  according 
as  a  man's  convictions  may  be :  nor  ought  one  to  be  taxed  with 
disrespect  of  authority  in  either  case ;  because  although  one 
may  be  treating  some  great  men  as  clearly  wrong,  yet  other 
men  no  less  great  have  justified  us  in  doing  so.  Perhaps 
this  consciousness  of  the  actually  disputed  character  of  many 
points  in  theology  and  politics  rendered  it  early  impossible 
to  my  mind  to  acquiesce  without  inquiry  in  any  one  set  of 
opinions  ;  the  choice  was  not  left  me  to  do  so.  I  was  brought 
up  in  a  strong  Tory  family ;  the  first  impressions  of  my  own 
mind  shook  my  merely  received  impressions  to  pieces,  and  at 
Winchester  I  was  well-nigh  a  Jacobin.  At  sixteen,  when 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  177 

I  went  up  to  Oxford,  all  the  influences  of  the  place  which  1 
loved  exceedingly,  your  influence  above  all,  blew  my  Jacobin- 
ism to  pieces,  and  made  me  again  a  Tory.  I  used  to  speak 
strong  Toryism  in  the  old  Attic  Society,  and  greedily  did  I 
read  Clarendon,  with  all  the  sympathy  of  a  thorough  royalist. 
Then  came  the  peace,  when  Napoleon  was  put  down,  and  the 
Tories  had  it  their  own  way.  Nothing  shook  my  Toryism 
more  than  the  strong  Tory  sentiments  that  I  used  to  hear  at 

,  though  I  liked  the  family  exceedingly.     But  I  heard 

language  at  which  my  organ  of  justice  stood  aghast,  and 
which,  the  more  I  read  of  the  Bible,  seemed  to  me  more  and 
more  unchristian.  I  could  not  but  go  on  inquiring,  and  I  do 
feel  thankful  that  now  and  for  some  years  past  I  have  been 
living  not  in  scepticism,  but  in  a  very  sincere  faith,  which 
embraces  most  unreservedly  those  great  truths,  divine  and 
human,  which  the  highest  authorities,  divine  and  human,  seem 
to  me  concurringly  to  teach.  I  have  said  this  defensively 
only,  for  I  am  sure  I  meant  to  convey  no  insinuation  against 
you  for  not  being  active  in  inquiring  after  truth.  I  believe  I 
never  think  of  you  but  with  entire  respect  and  admiration, 
and  I  never  talked  with  you  on  any  subject  without  gaining 
something,  —  so  far  am  I  from  venturing  to  think  that  I  am 
entitled  to  think  myself  fonder  of  truth  than  you  are.  I  am 
glad  that  you  like  the  Sermons  on  Prophecy  ;  I  have  not  ven- 
tured to  say  that  the  principle  is  of  universal  application,  but 
it  is  I  think  very  general ;  and,  in  both  the  cases  which  you 
notice,  I  think  it  holds.  Cyrus  is  said,  in  many  commentaries, 
to  be  a  type  of  Christ,  by  which  I  understand  that  the  lan- 
guage applied  to  him  is  hyperbolical,  and  suits  properly  only 
Him  who  is  the  real  deliverer  of  Israel,  and  conqueror  of 
Babylon.  And  the  passage  about  the  "  Virgin  conceiving," 
&c.,  has  a  manifest  historical  meaning  as  applied  to  Isaiah's 
wife ;  the  sign  being  one  of  time,  that  within  the  youth  of  an 
infant  presently  to  be  born,  Syria  and  Israel  should  be  over- 
thrown. Emmanuel  might  improperly  be  the  name  of  a  com- 
mon child,  just  as  Jesus  or  Joshua  was,  but  both  apply  to  our 
Lord,  and  to  Him  only,  in  unexaggerated  strictness.  I  have 
finished  Vol.  II.  of  the  History,  and  am  getting  on  with  the 
new  edition  of  Thucydides.  The  school  is  quite  full,  and  I 
have  been  obliged  to  refuse  several  applications  on  that  account. 
Our  attempt  to  secure  some  of  the  benefits  of  the  Eton  system 
of  tuition  will  come  into  practice  as  soon  as  the  half-year 
begins.  Wordsworth  is  and  has  been  remarkably  well  this 


178  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

•winter.  A  Miss  Gillies  came  down  here  in  the  autumn  to 
take  his  miniature,  in  which  I  think  she  has  succeeded  ad- 
mirably. The  state  of  the  times  is  so  grievous,  that  it  really 
pierces  through  all  private  happiness,  and  haunts  me  daily  like 
a  personal  calamity.  But  I  suppose  that  as  to  causes  and 
cure,  we  should  somewhat  differ,  though  in  much  surely  we 
should  agree.  I  wish  your  son  John  would  come  down  to  see 
me  some  day  from  Oxford.  I  should  much  wish  to  see  him, 
and  to  observe  how  he  is  getting  on. 

CCXXIII.      TO    SIR    CULLING    E.    SMITH,   BART. 
(With  reference  to  a  correspondence  in  the  Herts  Reformer.) 

Rugby,  February  14, 1840. 

I  have  two  principal  reasons  which  make  me  un- 
willing to  aHix  my  name  to  my  letters  in  the  Herts  Re- 
former, —  one,  as  I  mentioned  before,  because  I  am  so  totally 
unconnected  with  the  county,  —  which  to  my  feelings  is  a 
reason  of  great  weight :  —  my  other  reason  concerns  my  own 
particular  profession,  not  so  much  as  a  clergyman  but  as  a 
schoolmaster.  I  think  if  I  wrote  by  name  in  a  newspaper 
published  in  another  county,  I  should  be  thought  to  be  step- 
ping out  of  the  line  of  my  own  duties,  and  courting  notoriety 
as  a  political  writer.  And  this,  I  think,  I  am  bound  for  the 
school's  sake  to  avoid,  unless  there  is  a  clear  duty  on  the  other 
side,  which  I  own  I  cannot  as  yet  perceive  to  exist.  I  think 
that  your  own  case  as  a  gentleman  of  independent  rank  and 
fortune,  and  directly  connected  with  Hertfordshire,  is  very 
different  from  mine ;  for  no  one  could  charge  you  with  step- 
ping out  of  your  own  profession,  or  with  interfering  without 
any  title  to  do  so  in  the  newspaper  of  another  county.  And 
as  to  the  reasons  which  you  urge,  of  setting  an  example  of 
moderation  in  arguing  on  the  question  of  Church  Establish- 
ments, it  seems  to  me  that  the  mischief  of  our  newspapers 
mainly  arises  from  the  virulent  language  which  men  use  while 
writing  anonymously,  and  that,  as  far  as  example  goes,  this 
is  better  reproved  by  temperate  writings  which  are  also 
anonymous.  I  suppose  that  no  man,  writing  with  his  name, 
would  allow  himself  to  write  in  the  style  which  newspaper 
writers  often  use  ;  if  you  and  I  write  with  our  names,  it  would 
be  no  wonder  at  all  if  we  should  write  moderately ;  but  if 
Augur  and  F.  H.  observe  the  courtesies  and  the  charities  of 
life,  which  their  incognito  might  enable  them  to  cast  aside  if 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  179 

they  would,  it  appears  to  me  to  be  likely,  as  far  as  their  letters 
are  read,  to  have  a  salutary  influence,  because  their  modera- 
tion could  scarcely  be  ascribed  to  anything  but  to  their  real 
disapprobation  of  scurrility  and  unfairness.  After  all,  my 
incognito  is  only  a  very  slight  veil,  and  I  am  more  anxious  to 
preserve  it  in  form  than  in  reality.  I  have  no  objection  to  be 
known  as  the  author  of  my  Letters,  but  I  would  neither  wish 
to  attach  my  name  to  them,  nor  to  be  mentioned  by  name  in 
the  Reformer,  for  the  reasons  which  I  have  given  above.  I 
trust  that  you  will  not  take  it  amiss  that  I  still  adhere  to  my 
former  resolution.  May  I  add  at  the  same  time,  that  I  am 
much  obliged  to  you  for  the  kind  expressions  in  your  letter, 
and  I  trust  that  you  will  have  no  cause  to  recall  your  testi- 
mony to  the  respectfulness  of  my  language  in  any  of  my 
future  Letters.  I  do  respect  sincerely  every  man  who  writes 
with  a  real  desire  to  promote  the  cause  of  Christ's  kingdom. 

CCXXIV.      *  TO   H.  FOX,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  February  21, 1840. 

I  am  well  persuaded  that  to  a  good  man  with  regard  to  his 
choice  of  one  amidst  several  lines  of  duty,  "  Sua  cuique  Deus 
fit  dira  cupido."  It  is  a  part  of  God's  Providence  that  some 
men  are  made  to  see  strongly  the  claims  of  one  calling, 
others  those  of  another.  If,  therefore,  a  man  tells  me  that  he 
feels  bound  to  go  out  as  a  Missionary  to  India,  I  feel  that  I 
ought  not  to  grudge  to  India  what  God  seems  to  will  for  her. 
A  very  old  friend  of  mine,  who  has  been  for  some  years 
superintendent  of  the  Missions  at  Madras,  is  coming  home 
this  spring  for  his  health,  hoping  to  go  ont  again  in  the 
autumn ;  if  your  purpose  is  fixed  I  should  like  you  to  see 
him,  for  he  would  counsel  you  well  as  to  the  manner  of  carry- 
ing it  into  effect :  but  on  the  previous  question  itself,  —  to  go 
to  India  or  not,  —  his  judgment  must  be  biased,  for  he  him- 
self left  a  very  large  field  of  ministerial  duty  here,  to  go  out 
to  India.  But  whether  you  go  to  India,  or  to  any  other 
foreign  country,  the  first  and  great  point,  I  think,  is  to  turn 
your  thoughts  to  the  edification  of  the  Church  already  in 
existence,  —  that  is,  the  English  or  Christian  societies  as  dis- 
tinct from  the  Hindoos.  Unless  the  English  and  the  half- 
caste  people  can  be  brought  into  a  good  state,  how  can  you 
get  on  with  the  Hindoos  ?  Again,  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
greater  good  might  be  done  by  joining  a  young  English  set- 


180  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

tlement,  than  by  missionary  work  amongst  the  heathen. 
Every  good  man  going  to  New  Zealand,  or  to  Van  Diemen's 
Land,  not  for  the  sake  of  making  money,  is  an  invaluable  ele- 
ment in  those  societies ;  and  remember  that  they,  after  all, 
must  be,  by-and-by,  the  great  missionaries  to  the  heathen 
world,  either  for  God  or  for  the  Devil. 

But  still,  do  not  lightly  think  that  any  claims  can  be  greater 
upon  you  than  those  of  this  Church  and  people  of  England. 
It  is  not  surely  to  the  purpose  to  say  that  there  are  ten  thou- 
sand clergymen  here,  and  very  few  in  India.  Do  these  ten 
thousand  clergymen  all,  or  even  the  greater  part  of  them, 
appreciate  what  they  have  to  do  ?  Is  not  the  mass  of  evil 
here,  greater  a  thousand  times  in  its  injurious  effects  on  the 
world  at  large,  than  all  the  idolatry  of  India  ?  and  is  it  less 
dangerous  to  the  souls  of  those  concerned  in  it  ?  Look  at 
the  state  of  your  own  county  ;  *  and  does  not  that  cry  out  as 
loud  as  India,  notwithstanding  its  bishop  and  its  golden  stalls  ? 
And  remember  —  that  the  Apostles  did  indeed,  or  rather 
some  of  them  did,  spread  the  Gospel  over  many  provinces  of 
the  Roman  Empire ;  —  but  it  was  necessary  that  it  should 
have  a  wide  diffusion  once  ;  not  that  this  diffusion  was  to  go 
on  universally  and  always,  although  the  old  Churches  might 
be  grievously  wanting  the  aid  of  those  who  are  plunging  into 
heathen  and  barbarian  countries  to  make  nominal  converts. 

But  beyond  this  no  man  can  advise  you  ;  you  may  do  good 
by  God's  blessing  anywhere,  —  you  will,  I  doubt  not,  serve  him 
everywhere,  —  but  what  you  feel  to  be  your  particular  call, 
you  must  alone  determine.  But  do  not  decide  hastily,  for  it 
is  an  important  question,  and  if  you  go  and  then  regret  it,  time 
and  opportunities  will  be  lost.  You  know  that  F.  Newman 
went  out  as  a  missionary  to  Persia,  and  returned,  finding  that 
he  had  judged  his  calling  wrongly.  I  shall,  of  course,  be  at 
all  times  glad  to  advise  you  to  the  best  of  my  power,  either 
by  letter  or  personally. 

CCXXV.      TO    THE    SAME. 

Rugby,  March  30,  1840. 

I  would  not  willingly  have  left  your  last  letter  so  long  un- 
answered, but  my  time  has  been  even  more  than  usually 
engaged.  I  am  sure  that  if  your  bent  seems  to  be  to  the  work 
of  a  Missionary  in  India,  I  would  not  be  the  man  to  dissuade 

#  Durham. 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  181 

you  from  it.  It  is  a  Christian  and  a  most  important  calling, 
and  though  to  my  own  mind,  certainly,  there  are  others  even 
more  important,  yet  I  fully  believe  that  it  is  God's  will  that, 
by  our  different  impulses,  all  the  several  parts  of  His  vine- 
yard should  be  supplied  with  laborers.  Only,  if  you  do  go 
to  India,  still  remember  that  the  great  work  to  be  done  is  to 
organize  and  purify  Christian  Churches  of  whites  and  half- 
castes.  This,  I  believe,  Tucker  would  tell  you,  and  all  other 
men  whose  judgments  can  be  relied  on.  These  must  be  the 
nucleus  to  which  individuals  from  the  natives  will  continually 
join  more  and  more,  as  these  become  more  numerous  and 
more  respectable.  Otherwise  the  caste  system  is  an  insuper- 
able difficulty ;  you  call  on  a  man  to  leave  all  his  old  connec- 
tions, and  to  become  infamous,  in  their  eyes,  and  yet  have  no 
living  Church  to  offer  him  where  "  he  shall  receive  fathers 
and  mothers,  and  brethren  and  sisters,  &c.,  a  hundred-fold." 
Individual  preaching  amongst  the  Hindoos,  without  having  a 
Church  to  which  to  invite  them,  seems  to  me  the  wildest  of 
follies.  Remember  how  in  every  place,  Paul  made  the  eva-epf'is 
the  foundation  of  his  Church,  and  then  the  idolatrous  heathens 
gathered  round  these  in  more  or  less  numbers. 

Again,  if  you  go  out  to  India,  you  must  be  clear  as  to  ques- 
tions of  Church  government  and  the  so-called  Apostolical 
Succession,  which  there  become  directly  practical  questions. 
Are  you  to  look  upon  Lutheran  ordinations,  and  Baptists'  or 
Independent  baptisms,  as  valid  or  invalid  ?  Are  the  members 
of  non-episcopal  Churches  your  brethren  or  not  ?  In  matters 
of  doctrine,  an  opinion,  however  unimportant,  is  either  true 
or  false  ;  and  if  false,  he  who  holds  it  is  in  error,  although 
the  error  may  be  so  practically  indifferent  as  to  be  of  no 
account  in  our  estimate  of  the  men.  But  in  matters  of  gov- 
ernment, I  hold  that  there  is  actually  no  right,  and  no  wrong. 
Viewed  in  the  large,  as  they  are  seen  in  India,  and  when 
abstracted  from  the  questions  of  particular  countries,  I  hold 
that  one  form  of  Church  government  is  exactly  as  much  ac- 
cording to  Christ's  will  as  another ;  nay,  I  consider  such  ques- 
tions as  so  indifferent,  that,  if  I  thought  the  government  of 
my  neighbor's  Church  better  than  my  own,  I  yet  would  not, 
unless  the  case  were  very  strong,  leave  my  Church  for  his, 
because  habits,  associations,  and  all  those  minor  ties  which 
ought  to  burst  asunder  before  a  great  call,  are  yet  of  more 
force,  I  think,  than  a  difference  between  Episcopacy  and 
Presbytery,  unless  one  be  very  good  of  its  kind,  and  the 
VOL.  u.  16 


182  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

other  very  bad However,  whether  you  think  with 

me  or  not,  the  question  at  any  rate  is  one  of  importance  to  a 
man  going  as  Missionary  to  India,  Let  me  hear  from  you 
again  when  you  can. 

CCXXVI.      TO    CHEVALIER   BUNSEN. 
(Then  Pmssian  Minister  at  Berne.) 

Rugby,  February  25, 1840. 

It  rejoices  me  indeed  to  resume  my  communication  with 
you,  and  it  is  a  comfort  to  me  to  think  that  you  are  at  least 
on  our  side  of  the  Alps,  and  on  a  river  which  runs  into  our 
own  side,  in  the  very  face  of  Father  Thames.  May  God's 
blessing  be  with  you  and  yours  in  your  new  home,  and  pros- 
per all  your  works,  public  and  private,  and  give  you  health 
and  strength  to  execute  them,  and  to  see  their  fruits  beginning 
to  show  themselves.  I  am  going  on  in  my  accustomed  way 
in  this  twelfth  year  of  my  life  at  Rugby,  with  all  about  me, 
thank  God,  in  good  health. 

I  have  determined,  after  much  consideration,  to 

follow  the  common  chronology,  for  convenience.  To  alter  it 
now  seems  as  hopeless  as  Hare's  attempt  to  amend  our 
English  spelling;  and  besides  I  cannot  satisfy  myself  that 
any  sure  system  of  chronology  is  attainable,  so  that  it  does 
not  seem  worth  while  to  put  all  one's  recollections  into  con- 
fusion for  the  sake  of  a  result  which  after  all  is  itself  uncer- 
tain. I  have  written  the  naval  part  of  the  First  Punic  War 
with  something  of  an  Englishman's  feeling,  which  I  think 
will  make  you  find  that  part  interesting.  I  have  tried  also 
to  make  out  a  sort  of  Domesday  Book  of  Italy  after  the 
Roman  Conquest,  to  show  as  far  as  possible  the  various 
tenures  by  which  the  land  was  held * 

I  am  seriously  thinking  of  going  southwards.     I 

hesitate  between  two  plans,  Marseilles  and  Naples,  or  Trieste 
and  Corfu.  Corfu  —  Corcyra  —  would  be  genuine  Greece 


*  A  passage  has  here  been  omitted  relating  to  the  question  between  the 
Judges  and  the  House  of  Commons,  on  Breach  of  Privilege,  in  consequence 
of  the  statement  of  his  opinion  being  mixed  up  with  a  statement  of  facts 
which  he  had  intended  eventually  to  reconsider.  But  it  was  a  subject  on 
which,  at  the  time,  he  felt  very  strongly  in  favor  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, in  the  belief  that  "  the  leading  statesmen  of  all  parties  took  one  side, 
and  the  lawyers  and  the  ultra  Tories  the  other  side,"  and  that  "  Peel's  con- 
duct on  this  occasion  does  him  more  credit  than  any  part  of  his  political 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  183 

in  point  of  climate  and  scenery,  and  if  one  could  get  a  sight 
of  the  country  about  Durazzo,  it  would  greatly  help  the  cam- 
paign of  Dyi-rhachium.  Then,  in  going  to  Trieste,  we  should 
see  Ulm,  Augsburg,  Munich,  and  Salzburg,  and  might  take 
Regensburg  and  Nurnburg  on  our  return.  Naples  in  itself 
would  be  to  me  less  interesting  than  Corfu,  but  if  we  could 
penetrate  into  the  interior  nothing  would  delight  me  more. 
Do  you  think  that  we  could  penetrate  into  the  Abruzzi,  —  that 
is,  my  wife  and  I,  —  and  can  you  give  us  letters  to  anybody 
in  the  Neapolitan  dominions  if  we  did  go  ?  Any  advice  of 
yours  on  this  subject  would  be  very  acceptable.  We  went  to 
Cambridge  at  the  end  of-  our  winter  holidays,  where  I  saw 
Donaldson,  the  author  of  the  New  Cratylus,  and  almost  the 
only  Englishman  who  promises,  I  think,  to  be  a  really  good 
philologer.  How  I  wish  that  your  Egyptian  work  were  pub- 
lished, and  that  we  had  a  near  prospect  of  the  Evangelica  and 
the  liturgical  work. 

Niebuhr's  third  volume  is  indeed  delightful ;  but  it  grieved 
me  to  find  those  frequent  expressions,  in  his  later  letters,  of 
his  declining  regard  for  England.  I  grieve  at  it,  but  I  do 
not  wonder.  Most  gladly  do  I  join  in  your  proposal  that 

we  should  write  monthly Will   you  send  me  your 

proper  address  in  German,  for  I  do  not  like  directions  to  you 
in  French. 

CCXXVII.      TO    W.    W.    HULL,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  March  13, 1840. 

I  do  not  often  venture  to  talk  to  you  about  public 

affairs,  but  surely  you  will  agree  with  me  in  deprecating  this 
war  with  China,  which  really  seems  to  me  so  wicked  as  to  be 
a  national  sin  of  the  greatest  possible  magnitude,  and  it  dis- 
tresses me  very  deeply.  Cannot  anything  be  done  by  petition 
or  otherwise  to  awaken  men's  minds  to  the  dreadful  guilt  we 
are  incurring  ?  I  really  do  not  remember,  in  any  history,  of 
a  war  undertaken  with  such  combined  injustice  and  baseness. 
Ordinary  wars  of  conquest  are  to  me  far  less  wicked,  than  to 
go  to  war  in  order  to  maintain  smuggling,  and  that  smuggling 
consisting  in  the  introduction  of  a  demoralizing  drug,  which 
the  government  of  China  wishes  to  keep  out,  and  which  we, 
for  the  lucre  of  gain,  want  to  introduce  by  force  ;  and  in  this 
quarrel  are  going  to  burn  and  slay  in  the  pride  of  our  sup- 
posed superiority. 


184  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

CCXXVIII.      TO    W.    LEAPER   NEWTON,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  February  19,  1840. 

It  is  with  the  most  sincere  regret  that  I  feel  myself  unable 
to  give  an  unqualified  support  to  the  resolution  which  you 
propose  to  bring  forward  at  the  next  general  meeting  of  the 
proprietors  of  the  North  Midland  Railway  Company. 

Of  course,  if  I  held  the  Jewish  law  of  the  Sabbath  to  be 
binding  upon  us,  the  question  would  not  be  one  of  degree,  but 
I  should  wish  to  stop  all  travelling  on  Sundays  as  in  itself 
unlawful.  But  holding  that  the  Christian  Lord's  Day  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  the  Sabbath,  and  to  be  observed  in 
a  different  manner,  the  question  of  Sunday  travelling  is,  in 
my  mind,  quite  one  of  degree  ;  and  whilst  I  entirely  think 
that  the  trains  which  travel  on  that  day  should  be  very  much 
fewer  on  every  account,  yet  I  could  not  consent  to  suspend  all 
travelling  on  a  great  line  of  communication  for  twenty-four 
hours,  especially  as  the  creation  of  railways  necessarily  puts 
an  end  to  other  conveyances  in  the  same  direction  ;  and  if  the 
trains  do  not  travel,  a  poor  man,  who  could  not  post,  might 
find  it  impossible  to  get  on  at  all.  But  I  would  cheerfully 
support  you  in  voting  that  only  a  single  train  each  way  should 
travel  on  the  Sunday,  which  would  surely  enable  the  clerks, 
porters,  &c.,  at  every  station,  to  have  the  greatest  part  of 
every  Sunday  at  their  own  disposal.  Nay,  I  would  gladly 
subscribe  individually  to  a  fund  for  obtaining  additional  help 
on  the  Sunday,  so  that  the  work  might  fall  still  lighter  on 
each  individual  employed. 

CCXXIX.      TO   THE    SAME. 

Rugby,  February  22, 1840. 

It  would  be  absolutely  wrong,  I  think,  if  I  were  not  to 
answer  your  question  to  the  best  of  my  power ;  yet  it  is  so 
very  painful  to  seem  to  be  arguing  in  any  way  against  the 
observance  of  the  Sunday,  that  I  would  far  rather  agree  with 
you  than  differ  from  you.  I  believe  that  it  is  generally  agreed 
amongst  Christians  that  the  Jewish  Law,  so  far  as  it  was 
Jewish  and  not  moral,  is  at  an  end  ;  and  it  is  assuming  the 
whole  point  at  issue  to  assume  that  the  Ten  Commandments 
are  all  moral.  If  that  were  so,  it  seems  to  me  quite  certain 
that  the  Sabbath  would  have  been  kept  on  its  own  proper 
day ;  for,  if  the  Commandments  were  still  binding,  I  do  nol 


LIFE    OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  185 

see  where  would  be  the  power  to  make  any  alteration  in  its 
enactments.  But  it  is  also  true,  no  doubt,  that  the  Lord's 
Day  was  kept  from  time  immemorial  in  the  Church  as  a 
day  of  festival ;  and,  connected  with  the  notion  of  festival, 
the  abstinence  from  worldly  business  naturally  followed.  A 
weekly  religious  festival,  in  which  worldly  business  was  sus- 
pended, bore  such  a  resemblance  to  the  Sabbath,  that  the 
analogy  of  the  Jewish  law  was  often  urged  as  a  reason  for 
its  observance ;  but,  as  it  was  not  considered  to  be  the  Sab- 
bath, but  only  a  day  in  some  respects  like  it,  so  the  manner 
of  its  observance  varied  from  time  to  time,  and  was  made 
more  or  less  strict  on  grounds  of  religious  expediency,  without 
reference  in  either  case  to  the  authority  of  the  fourth  com- 
mandment. An  ordinance  of  Constantine  prohibits  other 
work,  but  leaves  agricultural  labor  free.  An  ordinance  of 
Leo  I.  (Emperor  of  Constantinople)  forbids  agricultural  labor 
also.  On  the  other  hand,  our  own  Reformers  (see  Cranmer's 
Visitation  Articles)  required  the  clergy  to  teach  the  people 
that  they  would  grievously  offend  God  if  they  abstained  from 
working  on  Sundays  in  harvest  time  ;  and  the  statute  of  Ed- 
ward VI.,  5th  and  6th,  chap,  iii.,  (vol.  iv.  part  i.  p.  132  of  the 
Parliamentary  edition  of  the  Statutes,  1819,)  expressly  allows 
all  persons  to  work,  ride,  or  follow  their  calling,  whatever  it 
may  be,  in  the  case  of  need.  And  the  preamble  of  this  statute 
which  was  undoubtedly  drawn  up  with  the  full  concurrence  of 
the  principal  Reformers,  if  not  actually  written  by  them, 
declares  in  the  most  express  terms  that  the  observance  of  all 
religious  festivals  is  left  in  the  discretion  of  the  Church,  and 
therefore  it  proceeds  to  order  that  all  Sundays,  with  many 
other  days  named,  should  be  kept  holy.  And  the  clear  lan- 
guage of  this  statute,  —  together  with  the  total  omission  of  the 
duty  of  keeping  the  Sabbath  in  the  Catechism,  although  it 
professes  to  collect  our  duty  towards  God  from  the  four  first 
commandments,  —  proves  to  my  mind  that  in  using  the  fourth 
commandment  in  the  Church  service,  the  Reformers  meant  it 
to  be  understood  as  enforcing  to  us  simply  the  duty  of  wor- 
shipping God,  and  devoting  some  portion  of  time  to  His 
honor,  the  particular  portion  so  devoted,  and  the  manner  of 
observing  it,  being  points  to  be  fixed  by  the  Church.  It  is  on 
tiiese  grounds  that  I  should  prefer  greatly  diminishing  public 
travelling  on  the  Sunday  to  stopping  it  altogether ;  as  this 
seems  to  me  to  correspond  better  with  the  Christian  observ- 
ance of  the  Lord's  Day,  which,  while  most  properly  making 
16* 


186  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

rest  from  ordinary  occupation  the  general  rule,  yet  does  not 
regard  it  as  a  thing  of  absolute  necessity,  but  to  be  waived  on 
weighty  grounds.  And  surely  many  very  weighty  reasons  for 
occasionally  moving  from  place  to  place  on  a  Sunday  are  oc- 
curring constantly.  But  if  the  only  alternative  be  between 
stopping  the  trains  on  our  railway  altogether,  or  having  them 
go  frequently,  as  on  other  days,  I  cannot  hesitate  for  an  instant 
which  side  to  take,  and  I  will  send  you  my  proxy  without  a 
moment's  hesitation.  You  will  perhaps  have  the  goodness  to 
let  me  hear  from  you  again. 

CCXXX.      TO   THE    SAME. 

Rugby,  April  1, 1840. 

I  should  have  answered  your  last  letter  earlier,  had  I  not 
been  so  much  engaged  that  I  assure  you  I  do  not  find  it  easy 
to  find  time  for  anything  beyond  the  necessary  routine  of  my 
employments.  I  agree  with  you  that  it  is  not  necessary  with 
respect  to  the  practical  point  to  discuss  the  authority  of  the 
command  to  keep  the  Sunday.  In  fact,  believing  it  to  be  an 
ordinance  of  the  Church  at  any  rate,  I  hold  its  practical  obli- 
gation just  as  much  as  if  I  considered  it  to  be  derivable  from 
the  fourth  commandment ;  but  the  main  question  is,  whether 
that  rest,  on  which  the  commandment  lays  such  exclusive 
stress,  is  really  the  essence  of  the  Christian  Sunday.  That  it 
should  be  a  day  of  greater  leisure  than  other  days,  and  of  the 
suspension,  so  far  as  may  be,  of  the  common  business  of  life,  I 
quite  allow;  but  then  I  believe  that  I  should  have  much 
greater  indulgence  for  recreation  on  a  Sunday  than  you  might 
have ;  and  if  the  railway  enables  the  people  in  the  great 
towns  to  get  out  in  the  country  on  the  Sunday,  I  should  think 
it  a  very  great  good.  I  confess  that  I  would  rather  have  one 
train  going  on  a  Sunday  than  none  at  all ;  and  I  cannot  con- 
ceive that  this  would  seriously  interfere  with  any  of  the  com- 
pany's servants  ;  it  would  not  be  as  much  work  as  all  domestic 
servants  have  every  Sunday  in  almost  every  house  in  the 
country.  At  the  same  time,  I  should  be  most  anxious  to 
mark  the  day  decidedly  from  other  days,  and  I  think  that 
one  train  up  and  down  would  abundantly  answer  all  good  pur- 
poses, and  that  more  would  be  objectionable.  I  was  much 
obliged  to  you  for  sending  me  an  account  of  the  discussion  on 
the  subject,  and,  if  it  comes  on  again,  I  should  really  wish  to 
express  my  opinion,  if  I  could,  by  voting  against  having  more 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  187 

than  one  train.  I  am  really  sorry  that  I  cannot  go  along  with 
you  more  completely.  At  any  rate,  I  cannot  but  rejoice  in 
the  correspondence  with  you  to  which  this  question  has  given 
occasion.  Differences  of  opinion  give  me  but  little  concern ; 
but  it  is  a  real  pleasure  to  be  brought  into  communication 
with  any  man  who  is  in  earnest,  and  who  really  looks  to  God's 
will  as  his  standard  of  right  and  wrong,  and  judges  of  actions 
according  to  their  greater  or  less  conformity.* 

CCXXXI.       *TO    HOWELL    LLOYD,    ESQ. 

Rugby,  February  25, 1840. 

With  regard  to  Welsh,  I  am  anxious  that  people  should 
notice  any  words  which  may  exist  in  the  spoken  language  of 
old  people,  or  in  remote  parts  of  the  country,  which  are  not 
acknowledged  in  the  written  language.  '  Welsh  must  have  its 
dialects,  I  suppose,  like  other  languages,  and  these  dialects 
often  preserve  words  and  forms  of  extreme  antiquity,  which 
have  long  since  perished  out  of  the  written  language,  or  rather 
were  never  introduced  into  it.  You  know  Dr.  Pritchard's 
book,  I  take  it  for  granted,  the  only  sensible  book  on  the  sub- 
ject which  I  ever  saw  written  in  English.  This,  and  Bopp's 
Vergleichende  Grammatik,  should  be  constantly  used,  I  think, 
to  enable  a  man  to  understand  the  real  connection  of  lan- 
guages, and  to  escape  the  extravagances  into  which  our  so- 
called  Celtic  scholars  have  generally  fallen. 

CCXXXII.      TO    W.    W.    HULL,   ESQ. 
(Relating  to  a  Petition  on  Subscription.) 

April,  1840. 

My  wish  about  the  bill  is  this,  if  it  could  be  done ; 

that  the  Athanasian  Creed  should  be  rejected  altogether,  — 
that  the  promise  to  use  the  Liturgy  should  be  the  peculiar  sub- 
scription of  the  clergy,  —  that  the  Articles  should  stand  as 
articles  of  peace,  in  the  main  draft  of  each  Article,  for  clergy 
and  laity  alike;  —  and  that  for  Church  membership  there 
should  be  no  other  test  than  that  required  in  Baptism.  I 
think  you  may  require  fuller  knowledge  of  the  clergy  than 
of  the  laity ;  and,  as  they  have  a  certain  public  service  in 
the  Church  to  perform,  you  may  require  of  them  a  promise 

*  See  p.  315,  vol.  i.,  for  his  further  view  of  the  fourth  commandment. 


188  LIFE  OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

that  they  will  perform  it  according  to  the  law  of  our  Church ; 
but  as  to  the  adhesion  of  the  inner  man  to  any  set  of  religious 
truths,  —  this,  it  seems  to  me,  belongs  to  us  as  Christians,  and 
is  in  fact  a  part  of  the  notion  of  Christian  faith,  which  faith  is 
to  be  required  of  all  the  Church  alike,  so  far  as  it  can  be  or 
ought  to  be  required  of  any  one.  And  therefore,  so  long  as 
the  clerjry  subscribe  to  the  Articles,  so  long  do  I  hope  that 
they  will  be  required  at  taking  degrees  in  Oxford  or  Cam- 
bridge, of  all  who  are  members  of  the  Church.  If  they  are 
a  burden,  all  ought  to  bear  it  alike ;  if  they  are  a  fair  test  of 
church  membership,  they  should  extend  to  all  alike. 

CCXXXIII.       TO    THE    SAME. 

April,  1840. 

I  would  not  willingly  petition  about  the  Canons, 

except  to  procure  their  utter  abolition  ;  I  have  an  intense  dis- 
like of  clerical  legislation,  most  of  all  of  such  a  clergy  as  was 
dominant  in  James  the  First's  reign.  And,  if  the  Canons  are 
touched  ever  so  lightly,  what  is  left  untouched  would  acquire 
additional  force,  an  evil  greater  to  my  mind  than  leaving  them 
altogether  alone.  I  think  that  I  should  myself  prefer  peti- 
tioning for  a  relaxation  of  the  terms  of  Subscription,  and 
especially  for  the  total  repeal  of  the  36th  Canon.  Histori- 
cally, our  Prayer-Book  exhibits  the  opinions  of  two  very  dif- 
ferent parties,  King  Edward's  Reformers,  and  the  High 
Churchmen  of  James  the  First's  time,  and  of  1661.  There 
is  a  necessity,  therefore,  in  fact,  for  a  comprehensive  Sub- 
scription, unless  the  followers  of  one  of  these  parties  are 
to  be  driven  out  of  the  Church  ;  for  no  man  who  heartily 
likes  the  one,  can  approve  entirely  of  what  has  been  done  by 
the  other.  And  I  would  petition  specifically,  /  think,  but  I 
speak  with  submission,  for  the  direct  cancelling  of  the  damna- 
tory clauses  of  the  anonymous  Creed,  vulgarly  called  Atha- 
nasius's  —  (would  it  not  be  well  in  your  petition  to  alter  the 
expression,  "  Athanasius's  Creed  "  ?)  leaving  the  Creed  itself 
untouched. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  189 

i 

CCXXXIV.      TO    THE    SAME. 

May  16, 1840. 

I  have  sent  a  copy  of  this  petition  *  to  Whately :  if  he 
approves  of  it,  I  will  ask  you  to  get  it  engrossed,  and  put  into 
the  proper  forms.  My  feeling  is  this  ;  as  I  believe  that  the 
tide  of  all  reform  is  at  present  on  the  ebb,  I  should  not  myself 
have  come  forward  at  this  moment  with  any  petition,  but,  as 
you  have  resolved  to  petition,  I  cannot  but  sign  it ;  and  then, 
signing  your  petition,  I  wish  also  to  put  on  record  my  senti- 
ments as  to  what  seems  to  me  to  be  a  deeper  evil  than  any- 
thing in  the  Liturgy  or  Articles I  wish  that  the  sig- 
natures may  be  numerous,  and  may  include  many  Laymen  ; 
it  is  itself  a  sign  of  life  in  the  Church  that  Laymen  should 
feel  that  the  Articles  and  Liturgy  belong  to  them  as  well  as 
to  the  Clergy. 

CCXXXV.      *TO   J.   P.    GELL,   ESQ. 

April  12,  1840. 

I  do  not  like  to  let  my  wife's  letter  go  without  a  word  from 
me,  if  it  were  only  to  express  to  you  my  earnest  interest 
about  the  beginnings  of  your  great  work,  which  I  imagine  is 
now  near  at  hand.  It  is  very  idle  for  me  to  speculate  about 
what  is  going  on  in  states  of  society,  of  which  I  know  so 
little  ;  yet  my  knowledge  of  the  Jacobinism  of  people  here  at 
home,  makes  me  full  sure  that  there  must  be  even  more  of  it 
out  with  you,  and  it  fills  me  with  grief  when  I  think  of 

society  having  such  an  element  a-virpofov  e|  dpxrjs 

I  often  think  that  nothing  could  so  rouse  a  boy's  energies  as 
sending  him  out  to  you,  where  he  must  work  or  starve. 
There  is  no  earthly  thing  more  mean  and  despicable  in  my 
mind  than  an  English  gentleman  destitute  of  all  sense  of  his 
responsibilities  and  opportunities,  and  only  revelling  in  the 
luxuries  of  our  high  civilization,  and  thinking  himself  a  great 
person.  Burbidge  is  here  again,  as  fond  of  Rugby  as  ever, 
but  I  hope  that  he  will  now  complete  his  terms  at  Cambridge. 
I  hope  that  you  will  journalize  largely.  Every  tree,  plant, 
stone,  and  living  thing  is  strange  to  us  in  Europe,  and  capa- 

*  That  is,  for  the  restoration  of  Deacons.  His  wish  for  the  revival  of  any 
distinct  ecclesiastical  government  of  the  clergy  at  this  time,  was  checked 
by  the  fear  of  its  countenancing  what  he  held  to  be  erroneous  views  con- 
cerning the  religious  powers  and  duties  of  the  State. 


190  LIFE  OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

ble  of  affording  an  interest.  Will  you  describe  the  general 
aspect  of  the  country  round  Hobart's  Town  ?  To  this  day  I 
never  could  meet  with  a  description  of  the  common  face  of 
the  country  about  New  York  or  Boston,  or  Philadelphia,  and 
therefore  I  have  no  distinct  ideas  of  it.  Is  your  country  plain 
or  undulating,  your  valleys  deep  or  shallow,  —  curving  or 
with  steep  sides  and  flat  bottoms  ?  Are  your  fields  large  or 
small,  parted  by  hedges,  or  stone  walls,  with  single  trees  about 
them,  or  patches  of  wood  here  and  there  ?  Are  there  many 
scattered  houses,  and  what  are  they  built  of,  —  brick,  wood, 
or  stone  ?  And  what  are  the  hills  and  streams  like,  —  ridges, 
or  with  waving  summits,  —  with  plain  sides,  or  indented  with 
combes ;  full  of  springs,  or  dry  ;  and  what  is  their  geology  ? 
I  can  better  fancy  the  actors  when  I  have  got  a  lively  notion 
of  the  scene  on  which  they  are  acting.  Pray  give  my  kindest 
remembrances  to  Sir  John  and  Lady  Franklin ;  and  by  all 
means,  if  possible,  stick  to  your  idea  of  naming  your  place 
Christ's  College.  Such  a  name  seems  of  itself  to  hallow  Van 
Diemen's  Land,  and  the  Spaniards  did  so  wisely  in  transplant- 
ing their  religious  names  with  them  to  the  new  world.  We 
unhappily  "  in  omnia  alia  abiimus."  May  God  bless  you  and 
your  work. 

CCXXXVI.      f  TO    REV.    W.    K.   HAMILTON. 

Rugby,  May  4, 1840. 

I  thank  you  very  much  for  the  book  which  you  were  so 
kind  as  to  send  me I  was  delighted  to  see  transla- 
tions of  some  of  my  favorite  hymns  in  Bunsen's  collection, 
and  shall  try  to  get  them  sometimes  sung  in  our  Chapel.  I 
will  try  also  again  to  understand  the  very  old  music  which 
you  speak  of,  and  which  Lepsius,  at  Bunsen's  request,  once 
played  to  me.  It  is  a  proof  of  Bunsen's  real  regard  for  me, 
that  he  still  holds  intercourse  with  me  even  after  I  proved 
utterly  insensible  to  what  he  admires  and  loves  so  much.  But 
seriously,  those  who  are  musical  can  scarcely  understand 
what  it'  is  to  want  that  sense  wholly ;  I  cannot  perceive, 
(KaTaXa/i/3ai/«K.)  what  to  others  is  a  keen  source  of  pleasure  ; 
there  is  no  link  by  which  my  mind  can  attach  it  to  itself;  and, 
much  as  I  regret  this  defect,  I  can  no  more  remedy  it,  than  I 
could  make  my  mind  mathematical,  or  than  some  other  men 
could  enter  into  the  deep  delight  with  which  I  look  at  wood 
anemones  or  wood  sorrel.  I  trust  that  you  will  be  able  to 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  191 

tome  and  see  us,  though  I  know  the  claims  upon  your  time 
too  well  to  complain  of  your  absence.  You  will  be  glad  to 
hear  that  I  wrote  to  Keble  lately,  and  had  a  very  kind  answer 
from  him  ;  I  yearn  sadly  after  peace  and  harmony  with  those 
whom  I  have  long  known,  and  I  will  not  quarrel  with  them  if 
I  can  help  it ;  though,  alas,  in  some  of  our  tastes  there  is  the 
music  which  to  them  is  heavenly,  and  which  to  me  says  noth- 
ing ;  and  there  are  the  wild-flowers  which  to  me  are  so  full  of 

beauty,  and  which  others  tread  upon  with  indifference 

If  you  come  to  us  in  about  a  month's  time,  I  hope  that  I  shall 
be  able  to  show  you  four  out  of  the  seven  windows  in  our 
chapel  supplied  with  really  good  painted  glass,  which  makes 
me  not  despair  of  getting  the  other  three  done  in  good  time.  I 
should  always  wish  to  be  very  kindly  remembered  to  your 
father  and  mother,  whom  I  now  so  rarely  see. 

CCXXXVII.      TO    REV.   HERBERT   HILL. 

Rugby,  May  8, 1840. 

I  was  very  glad  indeed  to  find  that were  to  go  to  you ; 

but,  before  I  heard  it,  I  was  going  to  send  you  an  exhortation, 
which,  although  you  may  think  it  needless,  I  will  not  even 
now  forbear.  It  is,  that  you  should,  without  fail,  instruct  your 
pupils  in  the  six  books  of  Euclid  at  least.  I  am,  as  you  well 
know,  no  mathematician,  and  therefore  my  judgment  in  this 
matter  is  worth  so  much  the  more,  because  what  I  can  do  in 
mathematics,  anybody  can  do ;  and  as  I  can  teach  the  first  six 
books  of  Euclid,  so  I  am  sure  can  you.  Then  it  is  a  griev- 
ous pity  that  at  your  age,  and  with  no  greater  amount  of  work 
than  you  now  have,  you  should  make  up  your  mind  to  be 
shut  out  from  one  great  department,  I  might  almost  say,  from 
many  great  departments  of  human  knowledge.  Even  now  I 
would  not  allow  myself  to  say  that  I  should  never  go  on 
in  mathematics,  unlikely  as  it  is  at  my  age  ;  yet  I  always 
think  that  if  I  were  to  go  on  a  long  voyage,  or  were  in  any 
way  hindered  from  using  many  books,  I  should  turn  very 
eagerly  to  geometry,  and  other  such  studies.  But  further  I 
do  really  think  that  with  boys  and  young  men,  it  is  not  right 
to  leave  them  in  ignorance  of  the  beginnings  of  physical 
science.  It  is  so  hard  to  begin  anything  in  after  life,  and  so 
comparatively  easy  to  continue  what  has  been  begun,  that  I 
think  we  are  bound  to  break  ground  as  it  were,  into  several 
of  the  mines  of  knowledge  with  our  pupils,  that  the  first  dif- 


192  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

ficulties  may  be  overcome  by  them  while  there  is  /et  a  power 
from  without  to  aid  their  own  faltering  resolution,  and  that  so 
they  may  be  enabled,  if  they  will,  to  go  on  with  the  study 
hereafter.  I  do  not  think  that  you  do  a  pupil  full  justice,  if 
you  so  entirely  despise  Plato's  authority,  as  to  count  geometry 
in  education  to  be  absolutely  good  for  nothing.  I  am  sure 
that  you  will  forgive  me  for  urging  this,  for  I  think  that  it 
concerns  you  much,  and  I  am  quite  sure  that  you  ought  not  to 
run  the  risk  of  losing  a  pupil  because  you  will  not  master  the 
six  books  of  Euclid,  which,  after  all,  are  not  to  be  despised  for 
one's  very  own  solace  and  delight ;  for  I  do  not  know  that 
Pythagoras  did  anything  strange,  if  he  sacrificed  a  hecatomb 
when  he  discovered  that  marvellous  relation  between  the 
squares  containing  and  subtending  a  right  angle,  which  the 
47th  proposition  of  the  first  book  demonstrates.  .... 
More  than  five  hundred  pages  of  Vol.  II.  are  printed,  but 
there  will  be,  I  fear,  one  hundred  more.  I  dread  the  adage 
about  ptya  /3(/3Xt'oi/.  We  have  real  spring  for  the  first  time 
for  seven  years ;  delicious  rains  and  genial  sunshines,  so  that 
the  face  of  the  earth  is  bursting  visibly  into  beauty.  I  think 
nothing  yet  of  summer  plans,  for  if  I  go  abroad,  and  give  up 
Fox  How,  it  must  be  done  tete  baissee,  it  will  not  bear  look- 
ing at  beforehand. 

CCXXXVIII.      TO    REV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

Rugby,  May  8, 1840. 

I  believe  that  I  look  to  Church  Extension  as  the 

only  possible  means,  under  God's  blessing,  of  bringing  society 
to  a  better  state,  but  I  cannot  press  Church  Extension  in  the 
common  sense  of  the  term,  as  a  national  measure,  because  I 
think  that  the  mass  of  Dissent  renders  it,  if  objected  to  by  the 
Dissenters,  actually  unjust  The  evil  of  Dissent  and  its  causes 
are  so  entirely  at  the  bottom  of  all  our  difficulties  in  this  way, 
that  we  never  can  get  on  consistently  or  smoothly  till  some- 
thing be  done  to  try  to  remedy  this  ;  and  if  this  is  incurable, 
then  the  nationality  of  the  Church  must  always  be  so  far  false 
that  you  can  never  have  a  right  to  act  as  if  it  were  entirely 
true.  And  the  same  difficulty  besets  the  Education  Question, 
where  I  neither  like  the  Government  Plan  nor  the  Diocesan 
System,  —  and  am  only  glad  that  I  can  avoid  taking  an  active 
part  on  either  side.  One  thing  I  see,  that  if  attempts  be 
made,  as  they  seem  to  be,  to  make  the  power  of  the  Bishops 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  193 

less  nominal  than  it  has  been,  there  will  be  all  the  better 
chance  of  our  getting  a  really  good  Church  government ;  for 
irresponsible  persons,  irremovable,  and  acting  without  respon- 
sible advisers,  are  such  a  solecism  in  government,  that  they 
can  only  be  suffered  to  exist  so  long  as  they  do  nothing ;  let 
them  begin  to  act,  and  the  vices  of  their  constitution  will  be- 
come flagrant.  I  have  written  even  this  little  note  at  two 
different  times,  and  yet  it  is  not  finished.  I  should  be  glad  to 
get  any  detailed  criticism  on  my  Prophecy  Sermons,  but  that, 
I  am  afraid,  I  shall  not  get.  If  you  put,  as  you  may  do, 
Christ  for  abstract  good,  and  Satan  for  abstract  evil,  I  do  not 
think  that  the  notion  is  so  startling  that  they  are  the  main  and 
only  perfect  subjects  of  Prophecy,  and  that  in  all  other  cases 
the  language  is  hyperbolical  in  some  part  or  other;  hyperbol- 
ical, I  mean,  and  not  merely  figurative.  Nor  can  I  conceive 
how,  on  any  other  supposition,  the  repeated  applications  of  the 
Old-Testament  language  to  our  Lord,  not  only  by  others,  but 
by  Himself,  can  be  understood  to  be  other  than  arbitrary. 

CCXXXIX.       TO    CHEVALIER   BUNSEN. 

Rugby,  May  26,  1840. 

I  feel  very  deeply  the  kindness  of  all  that  you 

say  about  my  work,  and  rejoice  with  the  greatest  thankfulness 
that  you  are  breathing  more  freely.  You  may  remember 
that  I  used  to  be  very  anxious  about  you,  and  now  I  rejoice  to 
think  that  you  are  relieved  from  your  burdens,  and  have  only 
to  beware  of  over  indulgence  in  your  own  works,  a  more  be- 
guiling danger,  probably,  than  that  of  working  too  much  at 
what  is  mere  business.  For  uiyself,  if  I  were  left  to  my 
natural  taste  merely,  I  believe  I  should  do  little  but  read  and 
write  and  enjoy  the  society  of  my  own  family  and  dearest 
friends ;  but  I  believe  also,  most  sincerely,  that  it  is  far 
better  for  me  to  be  engaged  in  practical  life,  and  therefore  I 
am  thankful  for  the  external  necessity  which  obliges  me  to 
go  on  at  Rugby.  In  fact,  the  mixture  of  school  work  and  of 
my  own  reading  furnishes  a  useful,  and  I  feel,  too,  a  pleasant 
variety  ;  and  I  cannot  perceive  that  it  is  any  strain  upon  my 
constitution,  while  I  sleep  like  an  infant,  and  daily  have 
either  a  bathe  or  a  walk  in  the  country,  where  I  think  neither 
of  school  nor  of  History. 

No  doubt  I  feel  very  keenly  the  narrow  compass  of  my 
reading,  from  the  want  of  greater  leisure ;  and  it  hinders  me 

VOL.  II.  17  H 


194  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD 

from  trying  to  do  some  things  which  I  should  like  to  do ;  but 
I  am  pretty  well  reconciled  to  this,  and  as  long  as  I  feel  that 
I  can  be  useful  practically  in  the  work  of  education,  I  am 
well  content  to  relinquish  some  plans  which  would  otherwise 
have  been  very  dear  to  me.  But  then  my  health  may  fail, 
and  what  am  I  to  do  then  ?  I  know  the  answer  which  you 
would  make  in  my  place,  and  I  would  try  to  share  in  your 
spirit,  and  to  say,  that  then  Christ,  I  doubt  not,  will  provide 
for  me  as  He  sees  best.  As  man  wishes  and  schemes,  I 
think  that  I  should  like  to  go  on  here  till  Mat  and  Tom 
have  gone  through  the  University,  and  then,  if  I  could,  retire 
to  Fox  How.  But  I  would  earnestly  pray,  and  would  ask 
your  prayers  too  for  me,  that  in  this  and  in  all  things  I  may 
have  a  single  heart  and  will,  wishing  for  nothing  but  what 
Christ  wishes  and  wills  for  me. 

I  read  your  accounts  of  your  own  pursuits  with  a  pleasure 
more  than  I  could  describe.  It  is,  indeed,  a  feeling  deeper 
than  pleasure ;  a  solemn  thankfulness  that  you  are  so  blessed 
with  the  will  and  the  power  to  set  forth  the  truth  in  faith 
and  love.  And  most  earnestly  do  I  pray  that  God's  blessing 
may  be  upon  all  your  works  to  complete  them  to  His  own 
glory,  and  to  the  good  of  His  Church.  I  do  rejoice,  indeed, 
to  see  you  now  reaping  the  fruits  for  which  you  have  sowed 
so  patiently,  and  seizing  those  great  truths  to  which,  by  so 
many  years  of  quiet  labor,  —  and  labor  which  ignorant  per- 
sons often  thought  and  think  to  have  another  direction,  as 
the  parallels  of  a  besieger's  approaches  are  not  carried  in  a 
straight  line  to  the  ditch,  —  you  were  silently  and  surely 
making  your  way  good.  But  it  is  a  sad  feeling  too,  when  I 
turn  to  our  own  Church,  and  see  the  spirit  which  prevails 
here. 

Now  for  the  second  volume  of  my  History,  I  shall  have 
no  pleasure,  or  next  to  none,  in  sending  it  to  you,  for  you 
will  sadly  feel  its  poverty.  You  will  perceive,  what  I  know 
too  well,  that  everywhere  you  are  in  soundings,  and  that  too 
often  you  are  almost  in  shoal  water.  I  mean,  you  will 
perceive  the  defects  of  my  knowledge  at  every  turn  ;  how 
many  books  I  have  never  read,  perhaps  have  never  heard  of ; 
how  incapable  I  am  of  probing  many  of  the  questions,  which 
I  notice,  to  the  bottom.  I  wished  to  have  your  Essay  on  the 
Principles  of  Historical  Criticism,  which  you  promised  me 
when  you  were  in  Westmoreland ;  but  now  I  must  beg  for  it 
for  the  third  volume.  I  think  that  you  will  like  the  tone  of 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  195 

the  book ;  in  that  alone  I  can  think  of  your  reading  it  with 
pleasure  ;  but  alas  !  alas  !  that  I  should  have  had  to  write 
such  a  book  in  the  face  of  Niebuhr's  third  volume,  which  yet 
I  was  obliged  to  do. 

I  went  up  to  one  of  our  levees  about  three  weeks 

ago,  and  was  presented  to  the  Queen.  I  believe  that  one 
of  the  principal  reasons  which  led  me  to  go,  was  to  enable 
me  to  be  presented  hereafter,  if  it  may  be,  by  you  at  Berlin. 
I  saw  several  people  whom  I  was  glad  to  see,  and  was 
amused  by  the  novelty  of  the  scene.  Our  political  world 
offers  nothing  on  which  I  can  dwell  with  pleasure  or  with 
hope.  One  or  two  men  are  stirring  the  question  of  Subscrip- 
tion to  the  Articles  and  Liturgy,  wishing  to  get  its  terms 
altered.  Hull  prepared  a  petition  to  this  effect,  which 
Wliately  will  present  this  evening  in  the  House  of  Lords. 

signed  it,  as  did ,  and  so  did  I ;  not  that  I  believe 

it  will  do  any  good,  nor  that  my  own  particular  wish  would 
lead  me  to  seek  for  reform  there  ;  it  is  in  government  and 
discipline,  not  in  doctrine,  that  our  Church  wants  mending 
most ;  but  when  any  good  men  feel  it  a  matter  of  conscience 
to  petition  for  what  I  think  good  and  right,  I  do  not  feel  it 
becoming  to  stand  aloof  from  them,  especially  where  the 
expression  of  their  sentiments  is  likely  to  expose  them  to 
some  odium.  But  for  my  own  satisfaction,  I  drew  up  and 
sent  to  Wliately  a  sketch  of  what  I  should  myself  wish  to 
petition  for ;  namely,  the  abolition  of  those  political  services 
for  the  30th  of  January,  &c.,  and  the  repeal  of  all  acts  or 
canons  which  forbid  deacons  from  following  a  secular  calling. 
,  Sir  R.  Inglis  is  going  to  propose  a  grant  of  £  400,000  a  year 
for  new  clergymen ;  but  surely  his  end  would  be  better 
answered,  and  at  no  expense,  by  reviving  the  order  of 
deacons,  and  enabling  us  to  see  that  union  of  the  Christian 
ministry  with  the  common  business  of  life  which  would  be 
such  a  benefit  both  to  the  clergy  and  the  laity.  Whately 
approved  entirely  of  the  petition,  but  thought  it  too  abrupt  a 
way  of  proceeding,  as  the  subject  would  be  new  to  so  many. 
Here,  indeed,  I  do  feel  the  want  of  time ;  for  I  should  like 
to  write  upon  the  point,  and  go  into  it  deeply,  which  now  I 
cannot  do  at  all. 


196  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 


CCXL.   TO  THE  SAME. 

Rugby,  June  13,  1840. 

I  know  not  whether  this  letter  will  find  you  at  Berne; 
probably  not,  for  I  have  just  read  the  official  account  of  the 
King  of  Prussia's  death ;  but  it  may  wait  for  you  or  follow 
you  to  Berlin,  and  I  would  not  willingly  let  a  day  pass  with- 
out expressing  my  deep  interest  in  the  present  crisis.  That 
extract  which  you  wrote  out  for  me  is  indeed  glorious,  and 
fills  one  with  thankfulness  that  God  has  raised  up  such  a 
King  in  a  great  Protestant  country  at  this  momentous 
time ;  when  the  great  enemy  in  his  two  forms  at  once, 
Satan  and  Antichrist,  the  blasphemy  of  the  Epicurean 
Atheist,  and  the  idolatry  of  the  lying  and  formal  spirit  of 
Priestcraft,  is  assailing  the  Church  with  all  his  might.  May 
Christ's  strength  and  blessing  be  with  the  King  and  with  you, 
that  Prussia  may  be  as  the  mountain  of  the  Lord,  the  city  of 
God  upon  a  hill,  whose  light  cannot  be  hid. 

I  have  in  the  last  week  again  felt  the  effects  of  your  true 
friendship.  Bishop  Stanley  procured  for  me  from  Lord  Mel- 
bourne the  offer  of  the  Wardenship  of  Manchester  College, 
just  vacant ;  and  he  told  me  that  he  had  been  especially 
induced  to  try  to  get  something  for  me  by  a  letter  of  yours, 
in  which  you  expressed  your  great  anxiety  that  I  should  be 
relieved  from  the  burden  of  Rugby.  But,  indeed,  dearest 
friend,  Rugby,  while  it  goes  on  well,  is  not  a  burden,  but  the 
thing  of  all  others  which  I  believe  to  be  most  fitted  for  me 
while  I  am  well  and  in  the  vigor  of  life.*  The  Wardenship 
I  declined,  for  the  income  was  so  comparatively  small,  that  I 
should  have  found  a  difficulty  in  educating  my  children  on  it ; 
but  much  more,  I  must  either  have  made  the  office  a  sinecure, 
or  it  would  have  involved  me  in  labors  and  responsibilities 
quite  equal  to  those  which  I  haVe  now,  and  of  a  kind  quite 
new  to  me.  And  I  think  that  the  Bishop  was  satisfied  that 
I  did  right  in  declining  it ;  but  I  do  not  feel  the  less  strongly 
his  great  kindness  and  yours.  God  bless  and  prosper  you 
always. 

CCXLI.      TO    AN    OLD    PUPIL.       (B.) 

Rugby,  August  17,  1840. 

I  do  not  give  heed  to  much  of  what  I  hear  about 

men's  opinions,  because  having  had  my  own  often  misunder- 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  197 

stood,  I  am  prepared  to  find  the  same  thing  in  the  case  of  my 
neighbors.  Yet  I  confess  that  I  should  like  to  know  the 
position  of  your  mind  at  the  present  moment,  because  some 
three  or  four  years  ago  it  had  attained,  I  think,  to  an  unusual 
degree  of  independence  and  vigor,  and  therefore  its  progress 
is  to  me  a  greater  matter  of  interest.  And  I  remember  well, 
by  my  own  experience,  the  strong  tendency  of  an  Oxford  life 
upon  any  one  who  is  justly  fond  of  Oxford,  to  make  him 
exceedingly  venerate  those  who  are  at  the  head  of  Oxford 
society But  then  in  those  days  the  excessive  admira- 
tion was  less  injurious,  because  it  was  merely  personal ;  there 
was  no  set  of  opinions  identified  with  Davison  and  Coplestone 
which  one  learnt  to  venerate  for  their  sake.  The  influence  of 
the  place  in  this  way  can  hardly  be  resisted  during  a  certain 
time  of  a  man's  life ;  I  got  loose  from  it  before  I  left  Oxford, 
because  I  found,  as  my  own  mind  grew,  that  those  whom  I 
had  so  reverenced  were  not  so  much  above  myself,  and  I 
knew  well  enough  that  I  should  myself  have  made  but  a  sorry 
oracle.  And  this  I  think  has  hindered  me  from  looking  up  to 
any  man  as  a  sort  of  general  guide  ever  since  ;  not  that  I 
have  transferred  my  idolatry  from  other  men's  minds  to  my 
own,  —  which  would  have  been  a  change  greatly  for  the 
worse,  —  but  as  much  as  I  have  felt  its  strength  comparatively 
with  others,  so  also  have  I  felt  its  absolute  weakness  and 
want  of  knowledge.  I  have  great  need  of  learning  daily,  but 
I  am  sure,  that  other  men  are  in  the  like  predicament,  —  in 
some  things,  though  in  fewer  than  in  any  other  man  whom  I 
know,  Bunsen  himself.  But  all  the  eminent  Englishmen 
whom  I  know  have  need  of  learning  in  a  great  many  points ; 
and  I  cannot  turn  my  schoolfellows  into  my  masters ;  ou  TroAii 
8ia(f){pfi  avQpamos  dvdp<birov  is  a  very  important  truth,  if  one 
appreciates  properly  the  general  wisdom  of  mankind  as  well 
as  its  general  unwisdom ;  otherwise  it  leads  to  scepticism,  a 
state  which  I  dread  and  abhor  every  day  more  and  more, 
both  in  itself  and  as  being  so  often  the  gate  of  idolatry. 

My  object  in  saying  all  this  is  mainly  to  warn  you  against 
the  secret  influence  of  the  air  in  which  you  are  living  for  so 
large  a  portion  of  the  year.  Like  all  climates  it  has  its 
noxious  elements,  and  these  affect  the  constitution  surely  but 
unconsciously,  if  it  be  continually  exposed  to  their  influence, 
unless  a  man,  knowing  that  he  is  living  in  an  aguish  district, 
looks  to  his  diet  and  habits  accordingly  ;  and,  as  poor  Davison 
17* 


198  LIFE  OF  DB.  ARNOLD. 

did  when  he  lived  in  the  fens,  gets  his  supply  of  water  from  a 
distance. 

Perhaps  my  late  journey  makes  me  more  alive  to  the  mis- 
chievous effects  of  any  one  local  influence.  One  cannot  help 
feeling  how  very  narrow  the  view  of  any  one  place  must  be, 
when  there  are  so  many  other  views  in  the  world,  none  scarcely 
without  some  element  of  truth,  or  some  facility  for  discerning 
it  which  another  has  not. 

For  my  own  especial  objects,  my  journey  answered  excel- 
lently. I  feel  that  I  have  no  need  of  going  to  Italy  again ; 
that  my  recollection  of  Rome  is  completely  refreshed,  and  that 
having  seen  Naples  and  the  interior  of  the  country  between 
Naples  and  Terni,  I  have  nothing  more  to  desire,  for  it  would 
be  idle  to  expect  to  visit  every  single  spot  in  Italy  which 
might  in  itself  be  interesting.  The  beauty  of  the  country 
between  Antrodoco  and  Terni  surpassed,  I  think,  anything 
that  I  saw,  except  it  be  La  Cava,  and  the  country  dividing  the 
bay  of  Naples  from  that  of  Salerno.  But  when  we  returned 
to  Fox  How,  I  thought  that  no  scene  on  this  earth  could  ever 
be  to  me  so  beautiful.  I  mean  that  so  great  was  its  actual 
natural  beauty,  that  no  possible  excess  of  beauty  in  any  other 
scene  could  balance  the  deep  charm  of  home  which  in  Fox 
How  breathes  through  everything.  But  the  actual  and  real 
beauty  of  Fox  How  is,  in  my  judgment,  worthy  to  be  put  in 
comparison  with  anything  as  a  place  for  human  dwelling.  I 
have  run  on  at  greater  length  than  I  intended. 

CCXLII.      *TO   REV.   H.   BALSTON. 
(Who  was  threatened  with  consumption.) 

Rugby,  August  17, 1840. 

I  grieved  not  to  see  you  on  our  way  to  France,  as 

Rugby,  I  fear,  must  be  forbidden  ground  to  you  at  present ; 
this  cold  air  would  ill  suit  a  delicate  chest.  I  have  great  con- 
fidence in  a  southern  climate,  if  only  it  be  taken  in  time, 
which  I  should  trust  was  the  case  in  the  present  instance. 
But  certainly  my  summer's  experience  of  Italy  has  not  im- 
pressed me  with  a  favorable  opinion  of  the  climate  there ;  for 
the  changes  from  heat  to  cold,  and  severe  cold,  were  very 
trying ;  and  after  sunset,  or  at  any  considerable  elevation  of 
ground,  I  found  the  cold  quite  piercing  on  several  occasions. 
And  in  the  Alps  it  was  really  miserable,  and  I  never  worked 
at  lighting  a  fire  with  such  hearty  good-will  as  I  did  at  Airolo 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  199 

in  Italy  in  this  present  year. We  enjoyed  greatly 

our  four  days  at  Fox  How,  and  are  now  returned  in  good 
bodily  condition,  and  I  trust  disposed  in  mind  also,  to  engage 
in  the  great  work  which  is  here  offered,  —  a  work,  the  impor- 
tance of  which  can  hardly,  I  think,  be  overrated. 

I  thank  you  most  truly  for  the  kind  expressions  with  which 
your  note  concludes.  It  would  make  me  most  happy  if  I  could 
feel  that  I  duly  availed  myself  of  my  opportunities  here  to 
teach  and  impress  the  one  thing  needful.  It  was  a  wise  in- 
junction to  Timothy,  "  to  be  instant  in  season  and  out  of  sea- 
son," because  we  so  often  fancy  that  a  word  would  be  out  of 
season  when  it  would  in  fact  be  seasonable.  And  I  believe  I 
often  say  too  little  from  a  dread  of  saying  too  much.  Here, 
as  in  secular  knowledge,  he  is  the  best  teacher  of  others  who 
is  best  taught  himself;  that  which  we  know  and  love  we  can- 
not but  communicate ;  that  which  we  know  and  do  not  love 
we  soon,  I  think,  cease  to  know. 

CCXLIII.      TO   THE    CHEVALIER   BUNSEN. 

Rugby,  September  4, 1840. 

Both  public  and  private  matters  furnish  me  with 

more  points  on  which  I  should  like  to  talk  to  you  than  it  is 
possible  to  enter  on  in  a  letter.  May  God  avert  the  calamity 
of  a  general  war,  which  would  be,  I  think,  an  unmixed  evil 
from  which  no  power  could  gain  anything,  except  it  were 
Russia.  I  cannot  help  looking  to  Russia  as  God's  appointed 
instrument  for  such  revolutions  in  the  races,  institutions,  and 
dominions  of  Europe  as  He  may  yet  think  fit  to  bring  about. 
But,  as  far  as  England  and  France  are  concerned,  war  could 
only  be  disastrous  to  both  parties. 

My  private  prospects  have  acquired  a  fixedness  which  they 
never  before  have  had  so  completely,  because  I  have  now 
reason  to  know  that  I  should  never  be  appointed  to  one  of 
those  new  Professorships  in  Oxford,  which  above  all  other 

things  would  have  been  acceptable  to  me It  vexes 

me  to  be  thus  shut  out  from  the  very  place  where  I  fancy  that 
I  could  do  most  good :  but  these  things  are  fixed  by  One  who 
knows  best  where  and  how  He  would  have  us  to  serve  Him, 
and  it  seems  to  tell  me  plainly  that  my  appointed  work  is 
here.  I  know  that  I  have  yearnings  after  opportunities  for 
writing  —  not  so  much  on  account  of  the  History  as  for  other 
matters  far  nearer  and  dearer ;  above  all,  that  great  question 


200  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

of  the  Church.  But  still  the  work  here  ought  to  satisfy  all 
my  desires ;  and,  if  I  ever  live  to  retire  to  Fox  How  with 
undecayed  faculties,  the  mountains  and  streams  which  I  so 
love  may  well  inspire  me  with  a  sort  of  swan-like  strain,  even 
in  old  age.  Meantime,  the  school  is  fuller  than  ever,  and  all 
seems  encouraging.  I  shall  have  another  new  master  to 
appoint  at  Christmas,  and  shall  perhaps  be  able  to  find  one 
amongst  my  own  old  pupils. 

I  have  to  thank  you  for  Gottling's  book  on  the 

Roman  Constitution,  and  for  Dorner's  work  on  the  Doctrine 
as  to  the  Person  of  Christ.  But  I  seem  to  be  able  to  read 
less  than  ever,  and  all  books  alike  stand  on  my  shelves,  as  it 
were  mocking  me ;  for  I  cannot  make  use  of  them  though  I 
have  them. 

Henry  will  come  down  here  next  month,  to  have  his  exam- 
ination from  me  previously  to  going  into  the  schools.  He  will 
stay  here,  I  hope,  some  time ;  for  it  will  do  him  good,  I  think, 
to  be  out  of  Oxford  as  much  as  he  can  just  before  his  exam- 
ination, when  he  will  need  all  possible  refreshment  and  repose. 
Tell  me  something  of  your  absent  sons,  of  Ernest  and  Charles, 
and  George,  of  whose  progress  I  should  much  like  to  hear. 
God  bless  you,  my  dearest  friend. 

CCXLIV.      TO    SIR   THOMAS   PASLET,   BART. 

Rugby,  October  19,  1840. 

I  never  rejoiced  so  much  as  I  do  now  that  I  see 

no  daily  newspaper.  I  think  that  the  interest  of  this  present 
crisis  would  soon  make  me  quite  ill,  if  I  did  not  keep  my  eyes 
away  from  it.  The  spirit  displayed  by  the  French  press,  and 
by,  I  fear,  a  large  portion  of  the  people,  is  very  painful  to  all 
those  who,  like  me,  have  been  trying  resolutely  to  look  on 
France  with  regard  and  with  hope ;  and  it  will  awaken,  I 
doubt  not,  that  vulgar  Antigallican  feeling  in  England  which 
did  so  much  mischief  morally  to  us.  Besides,  I  dread  a  war 
on  every  conceivable  ground,  both  politically  and  morally.  I 
do  not  see  how  any  power  but  Russia  can  gain  by  it ;  and 
Russia's  gain  seems  to  me  to  be  the  world's  loss.  Besides,  I 
have  no  faith  in  coalitions;  the  success  of  1814  and  1815 
was  a  rare  exception,  owing  to  special  causes,  none  of  which 
are  in  action  now  ;  so  that  I  have  great  fears  of  France  being 
victorious  ;  for,  with  the  greatest  respect  for  our  army  and 
navy,  I  have  none  whatever  for  our  war  ministers,  whether 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  201 

Whig  or  Tory,  —  blundering  in  that  department  having 
marked  all  our  wars,  with  scarcely  a  single  year's  exception. 
And  then  the  money  and  the  debt,  and  the  mortgaging  our 
land  and  industry  still  deeper ;  and  thus  inevitably  feeding 
the  deadly  ulcer  of  Chartism,  which  now,  for  the  moment,  is 
skinned  over,  and,  being  out  of  sight,  is  with  most  of  us,  ac- 
cording to  the  usual  infirmity  of  human  nature,  out  of  mind. 
Certainly  the  command  to  "  put  not  our  trust  in  princes,  nor 
in  the  son  of  man,  for  there  is  no  help  in  them,"  was  never 
less  difficult  to  fulfil  than  now ;  for  he  must  be  a  desperate 
idolater  who  can  find  among  our  statesmen  any  one  on  whom 
he  can  repose  any  excessive  confidence. 

One  thing  has  delighted  me,  namely,  Bishop  Stanley's 
speech  on  the  presentation  of  the  petition  last  session  for  the 
revision  of  the  Liturgy,  &c.,  which  he  has  now  published  with 
notes.  He  has  done  the  thing  exceedingly  well,  and  has 
closed  himself  completely,  I  think,  against  all  attack.  But  I 
do  not  imagine  that  the  question  itself  will  make  any  progress. 

I  am  reading  and  abstracting  Cyprian's  Letters, — - 

the  oldest  really  historical  monument  of  the  condition  of  the 
Christian  Church  after  the  Apostolical  Epistles.  They  are 
full  of  information,  as  all  real  letters  written  by  men  in  public 
stations  must  be ;  and  are  far  better  worth  reading  than  any 
of  Cyprian's  other  works,  which  are  indeed  of  little  value.  I 
am  revising  my  Thucydides  for  the  second  edition,  and  re- 
serving the  third  volume  of  Rome  for  Fox  How ;  so  that  I 
do  not  do  much  at  present  beyond  the  business  of  the  school : 
we  are  sadly  too  full  in  point  of  numbers,  and  I  have  got  thirty- 
six  in  my  own  form.  I  have  read  Mr.  Turnbull's  book  on 
Austria,  which  I  like  much,  and  it  well  agrees  with  my  ten- 
derness for  the  Austrian  government  and  people. 

CCXLV.       TO    REV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

Rugby,  September  14,  1840. 

I  have  received  your  Bampton  Lectures,  for  which 

I  thank  you  much ;  and  I  have  read  seven  out  of  the  eight 
Sermons  carefully,  and  shall  soon  finish  the  volume.  The 
volume  interested  me  greatly  for  the  subject's  sake,  as  well 
as  for  your  own.  With  much  I  entirely  agree,  —  indeed  I 
quite  agree  as  to  your  main  positions ;  but  I  have  always 
supposed  it  to  be  a  mere  enemy's  caricature  of  our  Protestant 
doctrine,  when  any  are  supposed  to  maintain  that  it  is  the  duty 


202  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

of  each  individual  to  make  out  hia  faith  de  novo,  from  the 
Scriptures  alone,  without  regard  to  any  other  authority  living 
or  dead.  I  read  with  particular  interest  what  you  say  about 
Episcopacy,  because  I  did  not  know  exactly  what  you  thought 
on  the  subject :  there  I  am  sorry  to  find  that  we  differ  most 
widely.  I  cannot  understand  from  your  book,  —  and  I  never 
can  make  out  from  anybody,  except  the  strong  Newmanites, 
—  what  the  essence  of  Episcopacy  is  supposed  to  be.  The 
Newmanites  say  that  certain  divine  powers  of  administering 
the  Sacraments  effectually  can  only  be  communicated  by  a 
regular  succession  from  those  who,  as  they  supposed,  had 
them  at  first.  W.  Law  holds  this  ground ;  there  must  be  a 
succession  in  order  to  keep  up  the  mysterious  gift  bestowed 
on  the  priesthood,  which  gift  makes  Baptism  wash  away  sin, 
and  converts  the  elements  in  the  Lord's  Supper  into  effectual 
means  of  grace.  This  is  intelligible  and  consistent,  though  I 
believe  it  to  be  in  the  highest  degree  false  and  Antichristian. 
Is  Government  the  essence  of  Episcopacy,  which  was  meant 
to  be  perpetual  in  the  Church  ?  Is  it  the  monarchical  element 
of  government  ? —  and  if  so,  is  it  the  monarchical  element,  pure 
or  limited  ?  Conceive  what  a  difference  between  an  absolute 
monarchy,  and  one  limited  like  ours  ;  and  still  more,  like  the 
French  monarchy,  under  the  constitution  of  1789.  I  cannot  in 
the  least  tell,  therefore,  what  you  suppose  to  be  the  real  thing 
intended  to  be  kept  in  the  Church,  as  I  suppose  that  you  do 
not  like  the  Newmanite  view.  And  all  the  moderate  High 
Churchmen  appear  to  me  to  labor  under  the  same  defect,  — 
that  they  do  not  seem  to  perceive  clearly  what  is  the  essence 
of  Episcopacy  ;  or,  if  they  do  perceive  it,  they  do  not  express 
themselves  clearly. 

Another  point  incidentally  introduced,  appeared  to  me  also 
to  be  not  stated  quite  plainly.  You  complain  of  those  persons 
who  judge  of  a  Revelation,  not  by  its  evidence,  but  by  its  sub- 
stance. It  has  always  seemed  to  me  that  its  substance  is  a 
most  essential  part  of  its  evidence ;  and  that  miracles  wrought 
in  favor  of  what  was  foolish  or  wicked,  would  only  prove 
Manicheism.  We  are  so  perfectly  ignorant  of  the  unseen 
world,  that  the  character  of  any  supernatural  power  can  be 
only  judged  of  by  the  moral  character  of  the  statements  which 
it  sanctions :  thus  only  can  we  tell  whether  it  be  a  revelation 
from  God,  or  from  the  Devil.  If  his  father  tells  a  child  some- 
thing which  seems  to  him  monstrous,  faith  requires  him  to 
submit  his  own  judgment,  because  he  knows  his  father's 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  203 

person,  and  is  sure,  therefore,  that  his  father  tells  it  him. 
But  we  cannot  thus  know  God,  and  can  only  recognize  His 
voice  by  the  words  spoken  being  in  agreement  with  our  idea 
of  His  moral  nature.  Enough,  however,  of  this.  I  should 
hope  that  your  book  would  do  good  in  Oxford ;  but  whether 
anything  can  do  good  there  or  not  is  to  me  sometimes 
doubtful. 

CCXLVI.       TO    MR.    JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  September  21,  1840. 

This  sheet  is  not  so  large  as  yours,  but  it  is  my  largest  size 
next  to  foolscap ;  and  I  readily  and  thankfully  acknowledge 
your  claim  upon  me  for  as  long  and  full  a  letter  as  I  can 
write.  I  have  more  than  time  enough  just  now,  for  I  have 
been  confined  to  my  room  since  Thursday  with  a  slight  attack 
of  fever,  which,  though  it  would  be  nothing,  I  suppose,  to  any 
one  else,  yet  always  has  such  an  effect  upon  my  constitution 
as  to  unfit  me  for  all  exertion  ;  and  I  lay  either  in  bed  or  on 
the  sofa  in  my  room  for  three  days,  a  most  inutile  lignum. 
Nor  am  I  yet  allowed  to  go  down  stairs,  but  I  am  on  the 
mend,  and  my  pulse  has  returned  nearly  to  its  natural  tardi- 
ness, which  in  me  is  its  state  of  health.  So  I  can  now  thank 
you  very  heartily  for  your  letter,  and  that  delightful  picture 
which  it  gave  me  of  your  home  repose.  No  man  feels  more 
keenly  than  I  do  how  much  better  it  is  irapa\a$fiv  TOV  Sypov 
than  fcT7j<Tao-&u,  —  if  my  father's  place  in  the  Isle  of  Wight 
had  never  passed  out  of  his  executors'  hands,  I  doubt  whether 
I  ever  could  have  built  Fox  How,  although  in  all  other  re- 
spects there  is  no  comparison  to  my  mind  between  the  Isle  of 
Wight  and  Westmoreland.  Therefore  I  "  macarize  "  you  the 
more,  for  having  both  an  inherited  home,  and  in  a  county  and 
part  of  the  county  per  se  delightful.  I  never  saw  Ottery  but 
once,  and  that  in  the  winter ;  but  the  valley  and  the  stream, 
and  the  old  church,  and  your  house,  are  still  tolerably  distinct 
in  my  memory ;  and  I  do  trust  that  one  day  they  will  be 
freshened  by  a  second  actual  view  of  them.  Cornish  and  his 
wife,  I  hear,  are  actually  in  Yorkshire :  if  you  can  tell  where 
a  letter  would  find  them.  I  would  ask  you  to  let  me  know  by 
one  line,  for  I  want  to  catch  them  on  their  return,  and  to 
secure  some  portion  of  their  time  by  a  previous  promise  be- 
fore George's  home  sickness  comes  on  him  like  a  lion,  and 
drives  him  off  to  Cornwall,  uno  impetu,  complaining  that  even 


204  LIFE    OF   DK.   ARNOLD. 

railways  are  too  slow The  school  is  flourishing  sur- 
prisingly, and  I  cannot  keep  our  numbers  within  their  proper 
limit ;  but  yet  the  limit  is  so  far  useful,  that  it  keeps  us  within 
bounds,  and  allows  us  to  draw  back  again  as  soon  as  we  can. 
We  are  now  about  340,  and  I  have  admitted  63  boys  since 
the  holidays.  And  all  this  pressure  arose  out  of  applications 
made  previously  to  our  great  success  at  Oxford  in  the  sum- 
mer, which  was  otherwise  likely  to  set  us  up  a  little.  Yet  it 
is  very  certain  to  me  that  we  have  little  distinguished  talent 
in  the  School,  and  not  much  of  the  spirit  of  reading.  What 
gives  me  pleasure  is,  to  observe  a  steady  and  a  kindly  feeling 
in  the  School,  in  general,  towards  the  Masters  and  towards 
each  other.  This  I  say  to-day,  knowing,  however,  so  well  the 
unstable  nature  of  this  boy  sea,  that  I  am  well  aware  how 
soon  any  "  dux  turbidus  "  may  set  our  poor  Adria  all  in  a 
commotion. 

Meanwhile,  as  long  as  we  go  on  fairly,  and  my  health 
stands,  I  am  well  convinced  that  for  the  present,  and  so  long 
as  my  boys  are  in  the  School,  I  would  rather  be  here  than 

anywhere  else Quod  est  in  votis :  if,  after  a  life  of 

so  much  happiness,  I  ought  to  form  a  single  wish  for  the  future, 
it  would  be  to  have  hereafter  a  Canonry  of  Christ  Church, 
with  one  of  the  new  Professorships  of  Scriptural  Interpreta- 
tion or  Ecclesiastical  History But  Oxford,  both  for 

its  good  and  its  beauty,  which  I  love  so  tenderly,  and  for  the 
evil  now  tainting  it,  which  I  would  fain  resist  in  its  very  birth- 
place, is  the  place  where  I  would  fain  pass  my  latest  years  of 
unimpaired  faculties. 

It  distresses  me  to  think  of  your  reading  such  a  book  as 
Kuinoel.  That  most  absurd  trash,  —  absurd  no  less  than  pro- 
fane, —  which  prevailed  for  a  time  among  the  German  theo- 
logians, I  have  happily  very  little  acquaintance  with,  except 
from  quotations  ;  but  I  have  always  thought  that  it  was  utterly 
bad.  Niebuhr's  spirit  of  historical  and  literary  criticism  was 
as  much  needed  by  German  theologians  as  by  English  ones, 
and  Strauss  to  this  day  is  wholly  without  it.  But  the  best 
German  divines,  Liicke,  Tholuck,  Nitzsch,  Olshausen,  &0-, 
write  only  in  German,  which  I  fancy  you  do  not  read ;  neither, 
in  fact,  do  I  read  much  of  them,  because  I  have  not  time  ;  but 
they  are  good  men,  devout  and  sensible,  as  well  as  learned, 
and  what  I  have  read  of  them  is  really  valuable. 

I  should  have  liked  any  detailed  criticism  of  yours  upon  Vo' 
11.  of  History  of  Rome.     I  have  scarcely  yet  been  able  to  gel 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  205 

any  judgments  upon  the  first  two  volumes  which  will  help  me 
for  those  to  come.  The  second  volume  will  be,  I  hope,  the 
least  interesting  of  all ;  for  it  has  no  legends,  and  no  contem- 
porary history.  I  tried  hard  to  make  it  lively,  but  that  very 
trying  is  too  like  the  heavy  Baron,  who  leaped  over  the  chairs 
in  his  room,  pour  apprendre  d'etre  vif.  What  I  can  honestly 
recommend  to  you  in  the  book  is  its  sincerity  ;  I  think  that  it 
confesses  its  own  many  imperfections,  without  attempting  to 
ride  grand  over  its  subject.  In  the  war  of  Pyrrhus  I  was 
oppressed  all  the  time  by  my  sense  of  Niebuhr's  infinite  supe- 
riority ;  for  that  chapter  in  his  third  volume  is  one  of  the 
mo.st  masterly  pieces  of  history  that  I  know,  —  so  rich  and 
vigorous,  as  well  as  so  intelligent.  I  think  that  I  breathe 
freer  in  the  First  Punic  War,  where  Niebuhr's  work  is  scarcely 
more  than  fragmentary.  I  hope,  though,  to  breathe  freer  still 
in  the  Second  Punic  War ;  but  there  floats  before  me  an  image 
of  power  and  beauty  in  History,  which  I  cannot  in  any  way 
realize,  and  which  often  tempts  me  to  throw  all  that  I  have 
written  clean  into  the  fire. 


CCXLVII.      *TO    W,    SETON   KARK,    ESQ. 
(Then  at  Haileybury  College.) 

Rugby,  October  5,  1840. 

I  thank  you  much  for  your  letter,  which  I  was  very  glad 
to  receive,  and  which  gave  me  as  favorable  an  account  of 
your  new  abode  as  I  had  expected.  It  must  be  always  an 
anomalous  sort  of  place,  and  I  suppose  that  the  best  thing  to 
do  is  to  turn  the  necessity  of  passing  a  certain  time  there  to 
as  good  account  as  possible,  by  working  well  at  the  Eastern 
languages.  I  should  be  much  obliged  to  you  if  you  would 
tell  me  what  Sanskrit  Grammar  and  Dictionary  you  use ;  and 
whether  there  is  anything  like  a  Sanskrit  Delectus,  or  an 
easy  construing  book  for  beginners.  I  am  not  so  old  as  Cato 
was  when  he  learned  Greek,  and  I  confess  that  I  should  h'ke, 
if  possible,  to  learn  a  little  of  the  sifter  of  Greek,  which  has 
almost  a  domestic  claim  upon  us  as  the  oldest  of  our  greatest 
Indo-Germanic  family. 

All  things  are  going  on  here  much  as  usual.  The  foot-ball 
matches  are  in  great  vigor.  The  Sixth  match,  is  over,  being 
,«ettled  in  one  day  by  the  defeat  of  the  Sixth.  The  School- 
house  match  is  pending,  and  the  School-house  have  kicked 

VOL.  II.  18 


206  LIFE  OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

one  goal.     Pigou,  Bradley,  and  Hodson,  leave  us,  I  am  afraid, 

in  the  course  of  a  week I  am  writing  this  at  Fourth 

Lesson,  as  usual,  and  the  lower  row  are  giving  up  their  books, 

BO  that  I  must  conclude. 

i 

CCXLVIII.      TO   ARCHDEACON   HARE. 

Rugby,  October  28, 1840. 

I  have  read  your  Sermons  with  very  great  pleas- 
ure, and  ought  long  since  to  have  thanked  you  for  them- 
The  Notes,  I  hope,  will  not  long  be  delayed.  It  is  a  greal 
delight  to  me  to  read  a  book  with  which  I  can  agree  so  gen- 
erally and  so  heartily.  Universally  one  never  can  expect  to 
agree  with  any  one,  but  one's  highest  reasonable  hope  is  ful- 
filled, when  one  sympathizes  cordially  with  the  greatest  part 
of  a  book,  and  feels  sure,  where  there  is  a  difference,  that  the 
writer  would  hear  our  opinions  patiently,  and  if  he  did  not 
agree  with  them,  would  at  least  not  quarrel  with  us  for  hold- 
ing them. 

It  was  no  small  delight  to  me  to  tread  the  ground  of  the 
Forum  once  more,  and  to  see  the  wonders  of  Campania,  and 
to  penetrate  into  the  land  of  the  Samnites  and  Sabines.  I 
missed  Bunsen  sadly,  but  his  friend  Abeken  was  a  most 
worthy  substitute,  and  was  hardly  less  kind  than  Bunsen 
himself  would  have  been. 

I  signed  the  petition,  because,  agreeing  with  its 

prayer,  I  did  not  wish  to  avoid  bearing  my  share  of  its  odium  ; 
but  I  am  not  earnest  about  it  myself,  being  far  more  anxious 
about  the  government  and  discipline  of  the  Church,  than  for 
any  alterations  in  the  Liturgy  or  Subscriptions ;  although  these 
too,  I  think,  should  not  be  left  undone.  But  I  would  do  any- 
thing in  the  world  to  destroy  that  disastrous  fiction  by  which 
the  minister  has  been  made  "  personam  Ecclesiae  gerere,"  and 
which  the  Oxford  doctrines  are  not  only  upholding,  but  aggra- 
vating. Even  Maurice  seems  to  me  to  be  infected  in  some 
measure  with  the  same  error  in  what  he  says  respecting 
the  right  of  the  Church,  —  meaning  the  Clergy,  —  to  educate 
the  people.  A  female  reign  is  an  unfavorable  time,  I  know, 
for  pressing  strongly  the  doctrine  of  the  Crown's  Supremacy. 
Yet  that  doctrine  has  been  vouchsafed  to  our  Church  by  so 
rare  and  mere  a  blessing  of  God,  and  contains  in  itself  so 
entirely  the  true  idea  of  the  Christian  perfect  Church,  —  the 
Kingdom  of  God,  —  and  is  so  mighty  to  the  overthrowing 


LIFE   OF  DR.    ARNOLD.  207 

of  that  which  I  regard  as  the  essence  of  all  that  is  evil  in 
Popery,  —  the  doctrine  of  the  Priesthood,  —  that  I  do  wish, 
even  now,  that  people's  eyes  might  be  opened  to  see  the 
peculiar  blessings  of  our  Church  Constitution,  and  'to  work 
it  out  to  its  full  development. 

CCXLIX.        *TO    REV.    II.    BALSTON. 

Rugby,  September  9, 1840. 

I  cannot  let  a  day  pass  without  thanking  you  for  your  very 

kind  letter Do  not  think  of  answering  this  letter  till 

you  feel  quite  able  to  do  it  without  painful  effort.  It  will  be. 
a  pleasure  to  me  to  write  to  you  when  I  can ;  and  I  should 
be  very  glad  indeed  if  I  could  help  to  relieve  what  I  fear 
must  be  the  loneliness  of  Guernsey.  But  I  dare  say  that 
other  people  have  not  always  my  shrinking  from  a  residence 
in  a  small  island  surrounded  by  a  wide  sea  ;  it  always  seems 
to  me  like  a  prison  in  a  howling  wilderness 

Since  our  return  I  have  done  little  or  nothing  besides  the 
school  work  and  my  letters.  I  do  not  intend  to  do  much  as 
yet  upon  the  History  ;  but  I  am  getting  on  a  little  with 
Thucydides,  a  work,  however,  in  which  I  take  now  but  little 
interest. 

My  wife  will  add  a  few  lines  to  go  in  the  same  cover  with 
this.  We  always  think  of  you  with,  affection,  and  with  no 
small  gratitude  for  your  constant  kindness  to  our  children. 

CCL.       TO    THE    SAME. 

Rugby,  October  29, 1840: 

I  cannot  bear  that  a  second  letter  should  go  to  Guernsey, 
without  conveying  under  my  own  hand  the  expression  of  my 
warmest  thanks  to  Miss  Hawtrey  for  her  most  kind,  delight- 
ful letters And  now,  my  dear  Balston,  I  have  not 

much  else  to  say,  or  rather,  I  have  much  more  than  I  can  or 
ought  to  say.  .....  I  look  round  in  the  school,  and  feel 

now  utterly  beyond  human  power  is  the  turning  any  single 
human  heart  to  God.  Some  heed,  and  some  heed  not,  with 
the  same  outward  means,  as  it  appears,  offered  to  both,  and 
\he  door  opened  to  one  no  less  wide  than  to  another.  But 
*  the  kingdom  of  God  suffereth  violence ; "  and  to  infuse 
the  violence,  which  will  enter  at  all  cost,  and  will  not  be 
tlonied,  belongs  to  Him  alone  whose  counsels  we  cannot  fol- 


203  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

low.  You  will  pray  for  us  all,  that  we  may  glorify  God's 
name  in  this  place,  in  teaching  and  in  learning,  in  guiding 
and  in  following. 

I  hate  many  delightful  proofs  that  those  who  have  been 
here,  have  found  at  any  rate  no  such  evil  as  to  prevent  their 
serving  God  in  after  life  ;  and  some,  I  trust,  have  derived 
good  from  Rugby.  But  the  evil  is  great  and  abounding,  I 
well  know ;  and  it  is  very  fearful  to  think  that  it  may  to 
some  be  irreparable  ruin.  I  will  write  again  when  I  can. 
May  God  bless  you  ever,  and  support  you,  as  he  did  my 
dear  sister,  through  all  that  He  may  see  fit  to  lay  on  you. 
Be  sure  that  there  is  a  blessing  and  a  safety  in  having  scarcely 
any  other  dealings  than  with  Christ  alone,  —  in  bearing  His 
manifest  will,  and  waiting  for  His  pleasure,  —  intervening 
objects  being  of  necessity  removed  away. 

CCLI.      TO   AN   OLD   PUPIL.     (G.) 

Rugby,  November  4, 1840. 

Your  letter  gave  me  such  deep  and  lively  pleasure,  that  I 
could  scarcely  restrain  my  joy  within  decent  bounds ;  for  to 
see  any  man  whom  I  thoroughly  value,  delivered  from  the 
snare  of  the  law  as  a  profession,  is  with  me  a  matter  of  the 
most  earnest  rejoicing.  It  can  scarcely  be  necessary  for  me 
to  say,  that  as  I  grieved  to  see  you  decided,  as  I  supposed, 
in  favor  of  the  law,  so  I  should  rejoice  in  your  escaping 
while  it  is  yet  time,  and  following  the  right-hand  path  to 
any  pure  and  Christian  calling,  which  to  my  mind  that  of 
an  advocate,  according  to  the  common  practice  of  the  Bar, 
cannot  be  ;  and  I  think  that  scarcely  any  practice  could  make 
it  such. 

I  think,  too,  that  for  yourself  individually,  you  would  do 
well  to  adopt  another  calling.  I  think  that  your  highest 
qualities  could  not  be  exercised  in  the  law,  while,  if  you  are 
at  all  inclined  to  love  argument  as  an  exercise,  and  therefo, 
to  practise  it  without  regard  to  its  only  just  end,  truth,  I  mn- 
not  but  .think  that  the  law  would  be  especially  dangerous  to 
you.  For  advocacy  does  seem  to  me  inconsistent  with  a 
strong  perception  of  truth,  and  to  be  absolutely  intolerable 
anless  where  the  mind  sits  loose,  as  it  were,  from  any  con- 
clusions, and  merely  loves  the  exercise  of  making  anything 
wear  the  semblance  of  truth  which  it  chooses  for  the  time 
being  to  patronize. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  209 

With  respect  to  the  other  part  of  the  question,  while  I 
should  delight  to  see  you  in  the  ministry  of  the  Church,  I 
cannot  quite  think  that  the  parochial  ministry  is  so  clearly  to 
be  preferred  to  the  work  of  education.  But  in  this  men  have 
also  their  calling,  and  I  would  not  wish  to  tempt  them  from  it. 
Nor  would  I  have  you  think  that  I  mix  up  any  personal  feel- 
ings at  the  possibility  of  persuading  you  to  join  us  at  Rugby, 
with  my  genuine  thankfulness,  for  your  own  sake  and  that  of 
others,  that,  in  so  great  a  matter  as  the  choice  of  a  profession, 
you  are  disposed  to  turn  from  the  evil  to  the  good.  But  I  do 
not  think  that  our  work  is  open  to  the  objections  which  you 
suppose  ;  it  and  the  parochial  ministry  have  each  their  ad- 
vantages and  disadvantages  ;  but  education  has  the  advantages, 
on  the  whole,  where  it  can  be  combined  with  opportunities  of 
visiting  the  sick  and  old,  the  sobering  needful  to  qualify  the 
influences  of  youth  and  health  and  spirits,  so  constantly  dis- 
played by  boys,  and  necessary  also  in  a  great  degree  to  those 
who  teacli  boys.  Do  not  decide  this  point  hastily,  unless  you 
feel  yourself  called  as  it  were  beyond  dispute  to  the  parochial 
ministry  ;  if  you  are,  then  follow  it  in  Christ's  name,  and  may 
it  be  blessed  to  you  and  the  Church. 

I  have  been  obliged  to  write  hastily,  but  I  wish  to  lose  no 
tune.  Write  again  or  come  over  to  us,  if  I  can  be  of  any  use 
in  answering  any  questions. 

CCLII.      TO    THE    SAME. 

Rugby,  November  16,  1840. 

I  am  afraid  that  my  opinion  is  suspected  by  you,  because  it 
was  expressed  so  strongly.  However,  you  must  not  suppose 
me  to  doubt  that  there  can  be  most  excellent  men  in  the  pro- 
fession even  of  an  advocate,  two  of  my  most  valued  and  re- 
spected friends  being,  or  having  been,  advocates ;  and  all 
other  parts  of  the  law  I  hold  in  the  highest  honor,  and  think 
that  no  calling  can  be  nobler.  But  I  do  not  quite  understand 
why  you  desire  to  make  out  a  justification  for  yourself  for 
choosing  one  profession  rather  than  another.  It  seems  to  me 
that  the  point  is  as  yet  fully  open.  Your  University  residence 
is  only  just  closed  ;  your  legal  studies  —  your  mere  legal  edu- 
cation —  can  hardly,  I  suppose,  have  yet  commenced.  Cer- 
tainly it  cannot  have  advanced  as  far  as  your  theological ;  so 
that  in  point  of  preparation  you  are  actually  more  fitted  for 
the  church  ministry  than  for  the  Law. 

18*  N 


210  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

Now,  with  respect  to  being  an  example  in  a  profession 
where  example  is  much  needed,  I  can  hardly  think  that  any 
man  could  choose  a  profession  with  such  a  view  without  some 
presumption.  In  such  matters,  safety  rather  than  victory 
should  be  each  man's  object ;  that  desire  to  preserve  his  best 
self,  being  not  selfishness,  but  as  I  imagine,  the  true  fulfilment 
of  the  law.  If  one  is  by  God's  will  fixed  in  a  calling  full  of 
temptations,  but  where  the  temptations  may  be  overcome,  and 
the  victory  will  be  most  encouraging  to  others,  then  it  may  be 
our  duty  to  overcome  rather  than  to  fly ;  but  no  man,  I  think, 
ought  to  seek  temptation  in  the  hope  of  serving  the  Church 
brilliantly  by  overcoming  it. 

With  regard  to  the  minor  question,  I  will  not  enter  upon  it 
now.  Thus  much,  however,  I  may  say,  that,  humanly  speak- 
ing, I  am  not  likely  soon  to  leave  Rugby  ;  that  it  would  be  my 
greatest  delight  to  have  you  here  as  a  master ;  and  that  the 
field  of  good  here  opened,  is,  I  think,  not  easily  to  be  sur- 
passed. If  you  decide  on  the  parochial  ministry,  then  I  think 
that  your  calling  would  be  to  a  large  town  rather  than  to  a 
country  village. 

CCLIII.      TO    AN    OLD    PUPIL,    ENGAGED     IN    BUSINESS.       (H.) 

Rugby,  November  18,  1840. 

I  think  that  even  your  very  kind  and  handsome  gift  to  the 
library  has  given  me  less  pleasure  than  the  letter  which  ac- 
companied it,  and  which  was  one  of  the  highest  gratifications 
that  a  man  in  my  profession  can  ever  experience.  Most  sin- 
cerely do  I  thank  you  for  it ;  and  be  assured  that  I  do  value 
it  very  deeply.  Your  letter  holds  out  to  me  another  prospect 
which  interests  me  very  deeply.  I  have  long  felt  a  very 
deep  concern  about  the  state  of  our  manufacturing  popula- 
tion, and  have  seen  how  enormous  was  the  work  to  be  done 
there,  and  how  much  good  men,  especially  those  who  were  not 
clergymen,  were  wanted  to  do  it.  And  therefore  I  think  of 
you,  as  engaged  in  business,  with  no  little  satisfaction,  being 
convinced  that  a  good  man,  highly  educated,  cannot  possibly 
be  in  a  more  important  position  in  this  kingdom  than  as  one 
of  the  heads  of  a  great  manufacturing  establishment.  I  feel 
encouraged  also  by  the  kindness  of  your  letter,  to  trouble 
you,  perhaps,  hereafter,  with  some  questions  on  a  point  where 
my  practical  knowledge  is  of  course  nothing.  Yet  I  see  the 
evils  and  dangers  of  the  present  state  of  things,  and  long  that 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  211 

those  who  have  the  practical  knowledge  could  be  brought 
steadily  and  systematically  to  consider  the  possibility  of  a 

remedy We   are    now  in  the   midst  of  the  winter 

examination,  which,  as  you  may  remember,  gives  us  all  suffi- 
cient employment. 

CCLIV.      tTO    REV-    w'   K-    HAMILTON. 

Rugby,  November  18  or  19,  1840. 

I  have  very  much,  which  I  should  like  to  say  to 

you  if  I  were  with  you,  but  I  have  not  time  to  write  it,  nor 

would  it  do  well  in  a  letter.     tells  me  that  you  were 

gratified  with  the  improvement  in  the  diocese  of  Salisbury; 
so  one  sees  encouragements  which  cheer  us,  as  well  as  disap- 
pointments enough  to  humble  us  ;  but,  perhaps,  I  am  already 
partaking  of  one  of  the  characteristics  of  old  age,  according 
to  Aristotle,  and  I  am  less  inclined  to  hope  than  to  fear.  But 
it  is  a  great  comfort  to  know  that  there  are  many  good  men 
at  work,  and  that  their  labors  are  not  without  a  blessing.  You 
will,  I  am  sure  have  been  wishing  and  praying  that  we  may 
be  saved  from  the  curse  of  war ;  an  evil  which  would  crush 
the  seeds  of  more  good  than  can  be  told  throughout  Europe, 
and  confirm  or  revive  mischiefs  innumerable.  Your  godson 
is  well,  but  it  is  becoming  needful  to  keep  him  from  the  boys 
of  the  school,  who  would  soon  pet  and  spoil  him. 

CCLV.     TO    REV.   DR.   HAWKINS. 

Rugby,  December  4, 1840. 

I  wished  also  to  thank  you  for  your  Sermon,  and  to 

say  a  little  to  you  about  it.  I  quite  agree  with  you  that  you 
should  not  attack  the  Newmanites  directly.  Independently  of 
what  I  might  call  the  moral  reasons  for  your  not  doing  so,  I 
think  that  truth  is  never  best  taught  negatively ;  and  these 
very  men  derive  a  great  advantage  from  holding  up  some- 
thing positive,  although,  as  I  think,  it  be  but  a  most  sorry  and 
abominable  idol,  to  men's  faith  and  love  ;  and  merely  to  say 
that  the  idol  is  an  idol,  and  that  its  worship  is  pernicious,  is 
doing  but  little  good,  unless  we  show  where  the  worship  can 
be  transferred  wholesomely.  But  your  sermon  is  to  me  per- 
sonally almost  tantalizing,  because  it  shows  that  we  agree  in 
so  much,  and  makes  it  doubly  vexatious  to  me  that  there  is 
beyond  this  agreement,  as  I  suppose  there  must  be,  a  great 


212  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

and  wide  divergence.  I  suppose  that  it  is  the  hardest  thing 
in  the  world  to  apprehend  rightly  what  is  that  peo-ov,  which  is 
really  the  great  excellence  to  be  aimed  at.  The  Newmanites, 
humorously  enough,  call  their  system  Via  Media.  You  think 
that  your  views  are  Via  Media,  —  I  think  that  mine  are  so ; 
that  is,  we  all  see  errors  and  dangers  on  the  right  and  on  the 
left  of  us,  and  endeavor  to  avoid  Doth.  But  I  suppose  that 
the  pf<rov  is  then  only  the  point  of  excellence,  when  it  refers, 
as  Aristotle  has  referred  it,  to  the  simple  tendencies  of  the 
human  mind ;  whereas  it  appears  to  me  that  men  are  some- 
times beguiled  by  taking  the  peo-ov  of  the  views  of  opposite 
parties  as  the  true  point  of  excellence,  or  still  more,  the  f^aov 
of  the  opinions  held  by  people  of  our  party  or  of  our  nation 
on  any  given  point.  You  think  that  Newman  is  one  extreme 
and  I  another ;  and  so  I  am  well  aware  that,  in  common  esti- 
mation, we  should  be  held ;  and  thus  in  Church  matters  the 
pevov  would  seem  to  be  somewhere  between  Newman's  views 
and  mine ;  whereas  the  truth  is,  that  in  our  views  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  Church,  Newman  and  I  are  pretty  well  agreed, 
and  therefore  I  stand  as  widely  aloof  as  he  can  do  from  the 
language  of  "  religion  being  an  affair  between  God  and  a 
man's  own  conscience,"  and  from  all  such  persons  who  dispute 
the  claims  of  the  Church  to  obedience.  But  my  quarrel  with 
Newman  and  with  the  Romanists,  and  with  the  dominant  party 
in  the  Church  up  to  Cyprian,  —  (Ignatius,  I  firmly  believe,  is 
not  to  be  classed  with  them,  vehement  as  his  language  is,)  — 
my  quarrel  with  them  all  —  and  all  that  I  have  named  are 
exactly  in  the  same  boat  —  is,  that  they  have  put  a  false 
Church  in  the  place  of  the  true,  and  through  their  counterfeit 
have  destroyed  the  reality,  as  paper  money  drives  away  gold. 
And  this  false  Church  is  the  Priesthood,  to  which  are  ascribed 
all  the  powers  really  belonging  to  the  true  Church,  with  others 
which  do  not  and  cannot  belong  to  any  human  power.  But 
the  Priesthood  and  the  Succession  are  inseparable,  —  the 
Succession  having  no  meaning  whatever  if  there  be  not  a 
Priesthood,  as  W.  Law  saw  and  maintained  ;  arguing,  and  I 
think  plausibly  enough,  that  the  Succession  was  necessary  to 
carry  on  the  priestly  virtue  which  alone  makes  the  acts  of  the 
ministry  available.  Now  as  the  authorized  formularies  of 
our  Church  are  perfectly  free  from  this  notion,  and  as  the 
twenty-third  Article  to  my  mind  implies  the  contrary,  for  no 
man,  who  believed  in  the  necessity  of  a  Succession,  would 
have  failed  to  omit  that,  to  him,  great  criterion  of  lawfulness 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  213 

of  any  ordination,  —  it  has  always  vexed  me  to  see  our 
Clergy  coquetting  as  they  do  with  the  doctrine  of  Succession, 
and  clinging  to  it,  even  while  they  stoutly  repudiate  those 
notions  of  a  Priesthood  which  the  Succession  doctrine  really 
involves  in  it.  And  it  is  by  this  handle  that  the  Newmanites 
have  gained  such  ground,  especially  with  the  Evangelicals,  — 
for  they  too  have  been  fond  of  the  Succession  notion,  and 
when  the  doctrine  has  been  pressed  to  its  consequences,  they 
have  in  many  instances  embraced  them,  however  repugnant 
to  their  former  general  views  of  doctrine.  You  speak  of  per- 
sons who  do  not  value  Church  privileges.  I  have  no  sympa- 
thy with  such  at  all ;  but  then  you  seem  to  connect  Church 
privileges  with  the  Succession,  and  to  shrink  from  those  who 
deny  the  Succession  as  if  they  undervalued  the  Church. 
Perhaps  I  understand  you  wrongly  in  this,  and  if  so,  I  shall 
be  truly  rejoiced,  for,  to  my  mind,  he  who  holds  to  the  Suc- 
cession as  necessary,  should,  consistently,  adopt  Newmanism  to 
its  full  extent ;  for  really  and  truly  the  meaning  of  the  Suc- 
cession is  what  one  of  the  writers  of  the  Tracts  stated  in  one 
of  the  earliest  of  their  numbers,  "  that  no  one  otherwise  ap- 
pointed could  be  sure  that  he  could  give  the  people  the  real 
body  of  Christ."  And  this  is  a  pure  priestly  and  mediatorial 
power,  rendered,  according  to  this  hypothesis,  necessary  to  the 
Christian's  salvation,  over  and  above  Christ's  death,  and  his 
faith  in  it ;  a  power  which  I  am  sure  stands  exactly  on  the 
same  footing  with  Circumcision  in  the  Galatian  Church,  and 
what  St.  Paul  says  of  those  who  required  Circumcision  ap- 
plies exactly  to  those  who  so  hold  a  priesthood. 

All  this  has  been  recalled  to  me  now,  for  I  dare  say  I  have 
said  it  before,  by  your  late  sermon,  and  by  my  own  rather 
increasing  wish  to  write  on  the  whole  question  ;  a  wish  strength- 
ened by  the  incredible  errors  of  Gladstone's  last  work. 
The  vexation  to  me  is,  that  while  I  hold  very  high  Church 
doctrines,  I  am  considered  as  one  who  dislikes  the  Church, 
whereas  my  whole  hope  for  the  advance  and  triumph  of  the 
Gospel  looks  to  it  only  through  the  restoration  of  the  Church. 
But  the  Christians  were  called  tidfoi  because  they  respected 
not  the  idols  which  had  transferred  to  themselves  the  name 
and  worship  of  God.  And  so  I  am  called  a  no-Churchman, 
because  I  respect  not  the  idol  which  has  slipped  not  only  into 
the  Church's  place,  but  into  God's  —  i.  e.  the  notion  of  the 
Priesthood,  which  does  not  seem  to  me  to  be  false  only  in  its 
excess,  but  altogether  from  the  very  beginning  —  priestly 


214  LIFE   OF  DB.   ARNOLD. 

power  under  the  Gospel  being  reserved  to  Christ  alone,  and 
its  character  being  quite  distinct  from  those  other  powers  of 
government,  teaching,  and  ministration,  which  the  Church 
may  have  and  must  have.  But  from  the  natural  confusion 
between  government  with  ministration  in  a  religious  society, 
and  the  notion  of  priesthood,  the  master  falsehood  gradually 
stole  in  unperceived,  till  long  time  had  so  sanctioned  it,  that 
when  at  last  men  saw  and  allowed  its  legitimate  consequences, 
itself  was  still  spared  as  a  harmless  and  venerable  error,  if 
not  as  a  sacred  truth.  But  I  have  sent  you  a  sermon  in 
manuscript,  a  thing  intolerable,  and  therefore  I  will  end 
abruptly,  as  they  say  my  sermons  are  apt  to  do.  Thank  you 
for  your  allusion  to  our  visit  to  Oxford ;  we  hope  that  we 
may  at  any  rate  see  something  of  you,  and  you  need  not 
dread  my  coming  up  with  any  designs  of  arguing  or  entering 
into  controversy  ;  my  visits  to  Oxford  are  always  intended  to 
be  for  peace,  and  not  for  war. 

CCLVI.      TO    AN    OLD    PUPIL.     (G.) 

Rugby,  December  4,  1840. 
I  thank  you  for  a  certain  pamphlet  which 


gave  me  a  day  or  two  ago ;  I  must  earnestly  wish  it  success ; 
and  such  moral  reforms  are  among  the  purest  delights  which 
a  man  can  ever  enjoy  in  this  life.  I  delight  too,  most  heartily, 
that  the  change  of  profession  is  decided.  May  God's  blessing 
be  with  your  decision,  through  His  Son  now  and  ever. 

CCLVII.      TO    THE    SAME. 

Fox  How,  December  28, 1840. 

I  honor  and  sympathize  with  an  anxiety  to  follow  our 
Lord's  will  in  matters  of  real  moral  importance,  as  much  as 
I  shrink  from  the  habit  of  exalting  every  notice  of  what  was 
once  done  in  matters  of  form  into  a  law,  that  the  same  ought 
always  to  be  done,  and  that  Christ  has  commanded  it.  But 
I  do  not  feel  your  objection  to  taking  an  oath  when  required 
by  a  lawful  and  public  authority,  nor  do  I  quite  see  your  dis- 
tinction, between  taking  an  oath  when  imposed  by  a  magis- 
trate and  taking  one  voluntarily,  in  the  sense  in  which  alone 
the  oath  of  supremacy,  when  taken  at  Ordination,  can  be  called 
voluntary.  For,  if  the  thing  be  unlawful,  it  must  be  as  wrong 
to  do  it  for  the  sake  of  avoiding  a  penalty,  as  of  obtaining  a 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  215 

good.  But  it  is  quite  clear  to  me  that  the  evil  is  in  requiring 
an  oath,  —  when  we  speak  of  solemn  oaths,  and  not  of  those 
used  gratuitously  in  conversation,  to  which  I  believe  our 
Lord's  words  in  the  letter  apply.  I  would  not  do  anything 
which  would  imply  that  I  thought  a  Christian's  word  not  suf- 
ficient, and  required  him  to  make  a  distinction  between  it  and 
his  oath.  But  if  an  authority  in  itself  lawful  says  to  me,  "I 
require  of  you,  though  a  Christian,  that  same  assurance  which 
men  in  general  have  agreed  to  look  to  as  the  highest,"  I  do 
not  see  that  I  should  object  to  give  it  him,  although  in  my 
own  case  I  feel  it  to  be  superfluous.  And  it  appears  to  me 
clear  that  our  Lord  did  Himself  so  comply  with  the  adjuration 
of  the  High  Priest.  It  is  a  grief  to  me  that  the  Church  in 
this,  as  in  many  other  things,  has  not  risen  to  the  height 
designed  for  her ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  the  individual's 
business  is  not  to  require  oaths,  rather  than  not  to  take  them 
when  required  by  others.  The  difference  seems  to  me  to  lie, 
as  I  think  our  Article  implies,  not  between  oaths  voluntary 
and  involuntary,  —  for  no  oath  can  be  strictly  speaking  in- 
voluntary, "  commands  being  no  constraints,"  —  but  between 
oaths  gratuitously  proffered,  where  you  are  yourself  enforcing 
the  difference  between  affirmations  and  oaths,  and  oaths  taken 
on  the  requisition  of  a  lawful  authority,  where  you  incur  no 
such  responsibility. 

CCLVIII.      TO    MR.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Fox  How,  January  2, 1841. 

If  our  minds  were  comprehensive  enough  and 

life  were  long  enough,  to  follow  with  pleasure  every  pursuit 
not  sinful,  I  can  fancy  that  it  would  be  better  to  like  shooting 
than  not  to  like  it ;  but  as  things  are,  all  our  life  must  be  a 
selection,  and  pursuits  must  be  neglected,  because  we  have 
not  time  or  mind  to  spare  for  them.  So  that  I  cannot  but 
think  that  shooting  and  fishing,  in  our  state  of  society,  must 
always  be  indulged  at  the  expense  of  something  better. 

I  feel  quite  as  strongly  as  you  do  the  extreme  difficulty  of 
giving  to  girls  what  really  deserves  the  name  of  education 
intellectually.  When  Jane  was  young,  I  used  to  teach  her 
some  Latin  with  her  brothers,  and  that  has  been,  I  think,  of 
real  use  to  her,  and  she  feels  it  now  in  reading  and  trans- 
lating German,  of  which  she  does  a  great  deal.  But  there  is 
nothing  for  girls  like  the  Degree  Examination,  which  con- 


216  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

centrates  one's  reading  so  beautifully,  and  makes  one  master 
a  certain  number  of  books  perfectly.  And  unless  we  had 
a  domestic  examination  for  young  ladies  to  be  passed  before 
they  came  out,  and  another  like  the  great  go,  before  they 
come  of  age,  I  do  not  see  how  the  thing  can  ever  be  effected. 
Seriously,  I  do  not  see  how  we  can  supply  sufficient  encour- 
agement for  systematic  and  laborious  reading,  or  how  we 
can  insure  many  things  being  retained  at  once  fully  in  the 
mind,  when  we  are  wholly  without  the  machinery  which  we 
have  for  our  boys.  I  do  nothing  now  with  my  girls  regularly, 
owing  to  want  of  time ;  once  for  a  little  while,  I  used  to 

examine in  Guizot's  Civilization  of  France,  and  I  am 

inclined  to  think  that  few  better  books  could  be  found  for  the 
purpose  than  this  and  his  Civilization  of  Europe.  They  em- 
brace a  great  multitude  of  subjects  and  a  great  variety,  and 
some  philosophical  questions  amongst  the  rest,  which  would 
introduce  a  girl's  mind  a  little  to  that  world  of  thought  to 

which  we  were  introduced  by  our  Aristotle 

We  had  a  very  delightful  visit  from  the  Cornishes  early  in 
December ;  Mrs.  Cornish  I  had  only  seen  for  a  few  minutes 
at  your  house  since  the  winter  of  1827  ;  and  Essy  I  had  not 
seen  at  all  since  she  was  a  baby.  I  learnt  from  Cornish  what 
I  never  knew  before,  the  especial  ground  of  Keble's  alienation 
from  me  ;  it  appears  that  he  says  that  "  I  do  not  believe  in 
the  Holy  Catholic  Church."  Now  that  I  do  not  believe  in  it 
in  Keble's  sense  is  most  true ;  I  would  just  as  soon  worship 
Jupiter;  and  Jupiter's  idolatry  is  scarcely  farther  from 
Christianity,  in  my  judgment,  than  the  idolatry  of  the  priest- 
hood ;  but,  as  I  have  a  strong  belief  in  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church,  in  my  sense  of  it,  I  looked  into  Pearson  on  the  Creed, 
and  read  through  his  whole  article  on  the  subject,  which 
I  had  not  for  many  years,  to  see  whether  my  sense  of  it  was 
really  different  from  that  of  the  most  approved  writers  of  our 
Church ;  and  I  found  only  one  line  in  all  Pearson's  article 
that  I  should  not  agree  with,  and  in  his  summing  up  or  para- 
phrase of  the  words  of  the  Creed,  where  he  says  what  we 
should  mean  when  we  say,  "  I  believe  in  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church,"  I  agree  entirely.  I  do  not  say  that  Pearson's  opin- 
ions on  Church  government  are  exactly  the  same  as  mine,  — 
I  dare  say  they  are  not ;  but  he  does  not  venture  to  say  that 
his  opinions  are  involved  in  the  words  of  the  Creed,  nor  would 
he  have  said  that  a  man  did  not  believe  in  the  Holy  Catholic 
Church,  because  he  did  not  believe  in  Apostolical  succession. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  217 

Meantime,  it  has  been  a  pleasure  to  me  to  find  that  my 
Sermons  on  Prophecy  have  given  no  offence  to  the  Newman- 
ites,  but  rather  have  conciliated  them,  as  far  as  they  go, 
which  was  one  of  my  main  objects  in  publishing  them.  I  am 
afraid  that  I  cannot  expect  the  same  toleration  to  be  extended 
to  the  new  volume  of  my  Sermons  which  is  going  to  be  pub- 
lished ;  for,  although  they  are  not  controversial,  yet,  as  em- 
bracing a  great  many  points,  they  cannot  avoid  collision  with 
those  whose  opinions'  are  the  very  opposite  to  mine ;  nor 
should  I  think  it  right  to  leave  out  everything  which  the  New- 
man ites  would  object  to,  any  more  than  Newman  would  think 
it  right  to  omit  in  his  sermons  all  that  I  should  object  to. 
Yet  I  still  hope  that  the  volume  will  give  no  unnecessary 
oifence  even  to  those  from  whom  I  differ  most  widely. 

CCLIX.       TO    W.    BALSTON,    ESQ. 

(On  the  death  of  his  son.) 

January,  1841. 

....  Miss  Hawtrey's  great  kindness  has  given  us  con- 
stant information  of  the  state  of  your  son  Henry ;  and  I  was 
happy  to  find  that  so  many  of  his  brothers  were  with  him.  I 
believe  that  I  am  much  more  disposed  to  congratulate  you  on 
his  account  than  to  condole  with  you  ;  at  least,  as  the  father 
of  five  sons,  I  feel  that  nothing  could  make  me  so  happy  for 
any  of  them  as  to  be  satisfied  that  they  were  so  loved  by 
God,  and  so  fashioned  by  His  Spirit  to  a  fitness  for  his  king- 
dom, as  is  the  case  with  your  dear  son  Henry. 

CCLX.       TO    KEY.    TREVENEN    PENROSE. 

Fox  How,  January  6, 1841. 

We  have  received  from  Miss  Hawtrey  a  long  ac- 
count of  the  last  days  of  H.  Balston's  h'fe,  and  I  never  read 
anything  more  beautiful.  He  seemed  to  be  aware  of  the 
coming  of  death,  step  by  step  ;  and  some  of  his  expressions 
at  the  very  last  seem  more  strikingly  to  connect  this  present 
existence  with  anotner  than  anything  I  ever  heard.  He  actu- 
ally laid  himself  down  to  die  in  a  particular  posture,  as  a  man 
lays  himself  down  to  sleep,  and  even  so  he  did  die.  His  state 
of  mind  was  quite  heavenly. 

We  are  enjoying  this  place  as  usual,  though  I  am  obliged 

VOL.  II.  19 


218  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

to  work  very  hard,  with  my  History  and  letters.  The  History 
is  intensely  interesting,  and  I  feel  to  regard  it  more  and  more 
with  something  of  an  artist's  feeling  as  to  the  composition 
and  arrangement  of  it;  points  on  which  the  ancients  laid 
great  stress,  and  I  now  think  very  rightly.  I  find  constantly 
the  great  use  of  my  many  foreign  journeys,  for  though  I 
have  no  good  maps  here,  yet  I  am  getting  on  with  Hannibal's 
march  from  personal  recollections  of  the  country,  which  I 
think  will  give  an  air  of  reality  to  the  narrative  greater  than 
it  ever  could  have  from  maps.  Twelve  o'clock  strikes,  and  I 
must  go  to  bed. 

CCLXI.      tTO    REV.    T.    J.    ORMEROD. 

Fox  How,  January  3,  1841. 

It  is  very  delightful  to  be  here,  and  our  weather 

till  to-day  has  been  beautiful.  I  sit  at  the  window  with  my 
books  on  the  sofa  around  me,  and  my  Epicurean  wish  would 
be  to  live  here  in  quiet,  writing,  and  reading,  and  rambling 
about  on  Loughrigg,  more  beautiful  than  Epicurus's  garden. 
But  my  reasonable  wishes  turn  to  the  work  at  Rugby,  as  a 
far  better  employment,  so  long  as  my  health  and  strength  are 
spared  me. 

Poor  Southey's  state  is  most  pitiable;  his  mind  is  quite 
gone.  There  is  something  very  touching  in  this  end  of  so 
much  mental  activity,  but  there  is  no  painful  feeling  of  mor- 
bid restlessness  in  his  former  activity,  —  he  worked  quietly 
though  constantly,  and  his  faculties  seem  gently  to  have  sunk 
asleep,  his  body  having  outlived  them,  but  in  such  a  state 
of  weakness  as  to  give  sign  that  it  will  soon  follow  them. 
Wordsworth  is  in  body  and  mind  still  sound  and  vigorous ; 
it  is  beautiful  to  see  and  hear  him. 

CCLXII.      TO    W.    W.    HULL,    ESQ. 

Fox  How,  January  15, 1841. 

I  was  unwell  before  the  holidays,  and  although  I 

soon  recovered,  yet  I  was  very  glad  to  come  down  here  and 
get  some  rest.  And  the  rest  of  this  place  in  winter  is  com- 
plete, —  everything  so  quiet,  with  only  our  immediate  neigh- 
bors, all  kind  and  neighborly.  Wordsworth  is  remarkably 
well,  and  we  see  him  daily ;  and  moreover,  Rydal  Lake  is 
frozen  as  hard  as  a  rock,  and  my  nine  children,  and  I  with 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  219 

them,  were  all  over  it  to-day,  to  Dur  great  delight.  Four  of 
my  boys  skate.  Walter  is  trundled  in  his  wheelbarrow,  and 
my  daughters  and  I  slide,  for  I  am  afraid  that  I  am  too  old 
to  learn  to  skate  now.  My  wife  walks  to  Ambleside  to  get 
the  letters,  and  then  goes  round  to  meet  us  as  we  come  from 

the  lake When  I  am  here,  it  does  make  me  sadl) 

yearn  for  the  time  when  I  may  live  here  steadily,  if  I  am 
alive  at  all.  Yet  I  do  not  suppose  that  I  should  ever  be  able 
to  get  an  income  to  retire  upon,  equal  to  what  yours  is  ;  but, 
if  my  boys  were  once  educated,  I  think  I  should  come  down 
here  without  more  delay.  As  for  poor  little  Walter,  I  do  not 
think  that  I  should  ever  be  able  to  wait  at  Rugby  for  him,  &o 
I  do  not  know  what  he  will  do.  Your  boys,  however,  are  so 
much  older  than  he  is,  that  your  difficulty  would  be  over 
much  before  mine  ;  and  depend  upon  it  that  the  comfort  of  an 
income  already  secured  is  great,  when  a  man  feels  at  all  un- 
well   but  all  this  is  in  wiser  and  better  hands  than 

ours,  and  our  care  has  enough  to  think  of  in  those  nearer  con- 
cerns which  may  not  be  neglected  without  worse  fault  than 
imprudence,  and  worse  mischief  than  a  narrow  income. 

CCLXIU.       TO    REV.   J.    HEAKN. 

Fox  How,  January  25,  1841. 

I  had  hoped  to  write  to  you  at  any  rate  before  we  left  Fox 
How,  and  now  your  kind  and  long  letter  gives  you  a  stronger 
claim  on  me.  You  have  also  been  so  kind  as  to  wish  my 
wife  and  myself  to  be  sponsors  for  your  little  boy ;  and  we 
can  have  only  one  scruple  in  becoming  so,  lest  we  should 
stand  in  the  way  of  other  friends  of  yours,  and  particularly 
of  Mrs.  Hearn's,  who  may  be  better  known  to  your  children 
than  we  can  expect  to  be  in  the  common  course  of  things,  as 
our  life,  in  all  human  probability,  will  be  passed  between 
Warwickshire  and  Westmoreland.  Otherwise  we  should  ac- 
cept with  great  pleasure  so  sure  a  mark  of  your  confidence 
and  friendship. 

We  have  been  here  almost  six  weeks,  in  perfect  rest  as  far 
as  this  place  is  concerned,  but  I  have  had  a  very  trouble- 
some correspondence  about  school  matters,  which  has  brought 
Rugby  more  before  my  mind  than  I  wish  to  have  it  in  the 
holidays.  I  hope  that  this  is  not  indolence,  but  I  feel  it  very 
desirable,  if  I  can.  to  get  my  mind  thoroughly  refreshed  and" 
diverted  during  the  vacation;  —  "diverted,"  I  mean  in  the 


220  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

etymological  rather  than  in  the  popular  sense,  that  is,  turned 
aside  from  its  habitual  objects  of  interest  to  others  which  re- 
fresh from  their  very  variety.  Thus  my  History  is  a  great 
diversion  from  the  cares  about  the  school,  and  then  the  school 
work  in  its  turn  is  a  diversion  from  the  thoughts  about  the 
History.  Otherwise  either  would  be  rather  overpowering, 
for  the  History,  though  very  interesting,  is  a  considerable 
engrosser  of  one's  thoughts ;  there  is  so  much  difficulty  in 
the  composition  of  it,  as  well  as  in  the  investigation  of  the 
facts.  I  have  just  finished  Cannae,  and  do  not  expect  to  do 
much  more  these  holidays. 

"We  hope  to  be  at  Laleham  on  Saturday,  and  to  stay  there 
till  Wednesday ;  thence  we  go  to  Oxford,  and  finally  return 
to  Rugby  on  Friday,  February  5.  There  are  other  subjects 
which  will  require  a  good  deal  of  attention,  just  coming  upon 
me.  I  am  appointed,  with  Dr.  Peacock,  Dean  of  Ely,  to 
draw  up  a  Charter  for  the  proposed  College  in  Van  Diemen's 
Land,  which  will  again  force  me  upon  the  question  of  relig- 
ious instruction  without  exclusion,  one  of  the  hardest  of  all 
problems.  In  all  British  colonies,  it  is  manifest  that  the 
Scotch  Church  has  exactly  equal  rights  with  the  English,  — 
equal  rights  even  legally,  —  and  I  think,  considering  Ireland, 
that  the  Roman  Church  has  equal  rights  morally.  Yet  to 
instruct  independently  of  any  Church,  is  utterly  monstrous, 
and  to  teach  for  all  three  Churches  together,  is,  I  think,  im- 
possible. I  can  only  conceive  the  plan  of  three  distinct 
branches  of  one  college,  each  sovereign  in  many  respects,  but 
in  others  forming  a  common  government.  Then  my  friend 
Hull  is  again  stirring  the  question  of  reform  in  our  own 
Church,  as  to  some  of  the  Rubrics  and  parts  of  the  Liturgy  ; 
and  though  I  would  not  myself  move  this  question  now,  yet 
agreeing  with  Hull  in  principle,  I  do  not  like  to  decline  bear- 
ing my  share  of  the  odium ;  thinking  that  what  many  me'n 
call  "  caution "  in  such  matters  is  too  often  merely  a  selfish 
fear  of  getting  one's  self  into  trouble  or  ill-will.  I  am  quite 
sure  that  I  would  not  gratuitously  court  odium  or  controversy, 
but  I  must  beware  also  of  too  much  dreading  it ;  and  the 
love  of  ease,  when  a  man  is  past  five-and-forty,  is  likely  to 
be  a  more  growing  temptation  than  the  love  of  notoriety,  or 
the  pleasure  of  argument. 

Your  useful  and  happy  life  is  always  an  object  on  which  my 
thoughts  rest  with  unmixed  pleasure ;  a  green  spot  morally  as 
well  as  naturally,  yet  not  the  green  of  the  stagnant  pool,  which 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  221 

no  life  freshens.  I  love  to  see  the  freedom  and  manliness, 
and  fairness  of  your  mind,  existing  in  true  combination  with 
holy  and  spiritual  affections.  Why  will  so  many  good  men, 
in  their  theological  and  ecclesiastical  notions,  so  completely 
reverse  St.  Paul's  rule,  showing  themselves  children  in  un- 
derstanding, and  men  only  in  the  vehemence  of  their  pas- 
sions?   

CCLXIV.      TO    CHEVALIER   BUNSEN. 

Fox  How,  January  28,  1841. 

I  have  been  working  at  my  History  pretty  steadily, 

and  have  just  finished  Cannae.  Some  of  our  military  geog- 
raphers have  offered  me  assistance ;  Colonel  Napier  amongst 
others ;  but  there  are  points  on  which  full  satisfaction  appears 
to  me  impossible.  I  think  that  both  Flaminius  and  Varro 
have  been  maligned,  and  that  the  family  papers  of  the  Scipios 
and  the  "  Laudatio  M.  Marcelli  a  filio  habita,"  have  falsified 
the  history  grievously.  Gottling  imagines  the  number  of 
thirty-five  tribes  to  have  been  an  idea  of  Flaminius,  and  that 
it  was  meant  to  be  final ;  but  he  strangely  ascribes  the  ad- 
dition of  the  last  two  tribes  to  the  censorship  of  Flaminius, 
whereas  it  preceded  it  nearly  twenty  years.  The  text  of 
Polybius  appears  to  me  in  a  very  unsatisfactory  state,  and  the 
reading  of  the  names  of  places  in  Italy  worth  next  to  nothing. 
I  am  sorry  to  say  that  my  sense  of  his  merit  as  an  historian 
becomes  less  and  less  continually ;  he  is  not  only  "  einseitig," 
but  in  his  very  own  way  he  seems  to  me  to  have  been  greatly 
overvalued,  as  a  military  historian  most  especially ;  I  should 
like  to  know  what  Niebuhr  thought  of  him.  Livy's  careless- 
ness is  most  provoking ;  he  gives  different  accounts  of  the 
same  events  in  different  places,  as  he  happened  to  take  up 
different  writers,  and  his  incapability  of  conceiving  any  dis- 
tinct idea  of  the  operations  of  a  campaign  is  truly  wonderful. 
I  think  that  the  Latin  Colonies  and  Hannibal's  want  of  artil- 
lery and  engineers  saved  Rome.  Samnium  would  not  rise 
effectually,  whilst  its  strongest  fortresses,  Beneventum,  JEser- 
nia,  &c.,  were  in  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  If  the  French 
artillery  had  been  no  better  than  Hannibal's  and  they  had  had 
no  other  arm  to  depend  on  than  their  cavalry,  I  believe  that 
the  Spaniards  by  themselves  would  have  beaten  them,  for 
every  town  would  then  have  been  impregnable,  and  the  Gu- 
erillas would  have  starved  the  army  out.  Some  of  Hannibal's 
19* 


222  LIFE  OF  DB.  ARNOLD. 

faults  remind  me  strongly  of  Nelson ;  his  cruelty  to  the  Ro- 
mans is  but  too  like  Nelson's  hatred  of.  the  Jacobins,  which 
led  to  the  disgraceful  tragedy  at  Naples.  The  "  meretricula 
Salapiensis,"  was  his  Lady  Hamilton.  The  interest  of  the 
History  I  find  to  be  very  great,  but  I  cannot  at  all  satisfy  my- 
self; the  story  should  be  so  lively,  and  yet  so  rich  in  knowledge, 
and  I  can  make  it  neither  as  I  wish. 

The  year  seems  opening  upon  us  with  more  favorable  pros- 
pects ;  there  is  a  strong  feeling  of  enthusiasm,  I  think,  about 
our  successes  in  Syria,  and  though  I  do  not  sympathize  in  the 
quarrel,  and  regret  more  than  I  can  say  the  alienation  of 
France,  yet  the  efficiency  of  the  navy  is  naturally  gratifying 
to  every  Englishman,  and  the  reduction  of  Acre  so  far  is, 
I  think,  a  very  brilliant  action.  Trade  seems  also  reviving, 
although  I  suspect  that  in  many  markets  you  have  excluded 
us  irrevocably.  But  these  respites  of  which  we  have  had  so 
many,  these  lullings  of  the  storm,  in  which  the  ship  might 
be  righted  perhaps,  and  the  point  weathered,  seem  doomed  to 
be  forever  wasted ;  the  great  evil  remains  uncured,  nay,  un- 
probed,  and  all  fear  to  touch  it.  Truly,  the  gathering  of  the 
nations  to  battle,  is  more  and  more  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Jerusalem,  not  in  the  sense  in  which  our  fanatics  look  at  the 
war  in  Syria,  as  likely  to  lead  to  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy  hi 
their  view  of  it,  but  because  political  questions  more  and  more 
show  that  the  Church  question  lies  at  the  root  of  them  — 
Niebuhr's  true  doctrine,  that  1517  must  precede  1688,  and  so 
that  for  a  better  than  1688,  there  needs  a  better  than  even 
1517.  Some  of  the  Oxford  men  now  commonly  revile  Lu- 
ther as  a  bold,  bad  man ;  how  surely  would  they  have  reviled 
Paul ;  how  zealously  would  they  have  joined  in  stoning  Ste- 
phen ;  true  children  of  those  who  slew  the  prophets,  not  the 
less  so  because  they  with  idolatrous  reverence  build  their 
sepulchres.  But  I  must  stop,  for  the  sun  is  shining  on  the 
valley,  now  quite  cleared  of  snow,  and  I  must  go  round  and 
take  a  farewell  look  at  the  trees  and  the  river,  and  the  moun- 
tains ;  ere  "  feror  exul  in  altum,"  into  the  wide  and  troubled 
sea  of  life's  business,  from  which  this  is  so  sweet  a  haven. 
But  "  Rise,  let  us  be  going,"  is  a  solemn  call,  which  should 
forever  reconcile  us  to  break  off  our  luxurious  sleep.  May 
God  bless  us  both  in  all  our  ways  outward  and  inward,  through 
Jesus  Christ 


LIFE  OB  DR.  ARNOLD. 


CCLXV.       *TO    REV.    A.    P.    STANLEY. 


223 


Rugby,  March  8,  1841. 

I  was  much  struck  by  what  you  say  of  Constan- 
tinople being  the  point  to  which  the  hopes  of  Greeks  are 
turning,  rather  than  to  Athens  or  Sparta.  I  can  well  believe 
it,  but  it  makes  the  tirades  of  many  Philo-Hellenians  very 
ridiculous,  and  it  should  moderate  our  zeal  in  trying  to  revive 
classical  antiquity.  It  curiously  confirms  what  I  said  in  the 
sermons  on  Prophecy,  —  that  ''  Christian  Athens  was  divided 
by  one  deep  and  impassable  chasm  from  the  Heathen  Athens 
of  old."  And  we  do  not  enough  allow  for  the  long  duration 
of  the  Byzantine  empire,  —  more  than  eleven  hundred  years, 
• —  a  period  how  far  longer  than  the  whole  of  English  History ! 
But,  however,  I  must  turn  from  Greece  to  Italy,  and  now  that 
you  are  in  genuine  Italy,  (which  you  were  not  before,  except 
in  the  short  distance  between  Rimini  and  Ancona,  for  Cisal- 
pine Gaul  has  no  pretensions  to  the  name,)  I  hope  that  you 
feel  its  beauty  to  be  more  akin  to  that  of  Greece.  I  have 
always  felt  in  the  Apennines  that  same  charm  that  you  speak 
of  in  the  mountains  of  Greece  ;  the  "  rosea  rura  Velini,"  be- 
tween Rieti  and  Terni,  are  surrounded  by  forms  of  almost 
unearthly  beauty.  I  have  no  deeper  impression  of  any  scene 
than  of  that,  and  when  I  was  in  that  very  rich  and  beautiful 
country  between  Como  and  Lugano,  I  kept  asking  of  myself 
why  I  so  infinitely  preferred  the  Apennine  to  the  Alpine  val- 
leys. Naples  itself  is  the  only  very  beautiful  spot  which  a 
little  disappointed  me ;  but  the  clouds  hung  heavily  and  coldly 
over  the  Sorrento  mountains,  and  Vesuvius  gave  forth  no 
smoke,  so  that  the  peculiar  character  of  the  scene,  both  in  its 
splendor  and  in  its  solemnity,  was  wanting.  My  wife  was 
half  wild  with  Mola  di  Gaeta,  and  indeed  I  know  not  what 
can  surpass  it.  There,  too,  the  remains  of  the  villas,  "jactis 
in  altum  molibus,"  spoke  loudly  of  the  Roman  times;  and 
from  Mola  to  Capua,  the  delightfulness  of  everything  was  to 
me  perfect.  My  own  plans  for  the  summer  are  very  uncer- 
tain ;  we  have  an  additional  week,  which  of  course  tempts  me, 
ind  I  did  think  of  going  to  Corfu,  and  of  trying  to  get  to  Du- 
razzo,  where  Caesar's  Lines  attract  me  greatly,  but  I  am  half 
afraid  both  of  the  climate  and  quarantine,  and  want  to  consult 
you  about  it,  if,  as  I  hope,  we  shall  see  you  before  the  end  of 
the  half-year.  Spain  again,  and  the  neighborhood  of  Lerida, 
Is,  I  fear,  out  of  the  question ;  so  that,  if  I  do  go  abroad,  I 
should  not  be  surprised  if  I  again  visited  Itaiy. 


224  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

I  suppose  that  by  this  time  your  thoughts  are  again  accom- 
modating themselves  to  the  position  of  English  and  of  Oxford 
Life,  after  so  many  months  of  a  sort  of  cosmopolitism.  I 
am  afraid  that  war  is  becoming  less  and  less  an  impossibility ; 
and,  if  we  get  reconciled  to  the  notion  of  it  as  a  thing  which 
may  be,  our  passions,  I  am  afraid,  will  soon  make  it  a  thing 

that  will  be My  own  desire  of  going  to  Oxford  was, 

as  you  know,  long  cherished  and  strong,  but  it  is  quenched 
now ;  I  could  not  go  to  a  place  where  I  once  lived  so  happily 
and  so  peaceably,  and  gained  so  much,  —  to  feel  either  con- 
stant and  active  enmity  to  the  prevailing  party  in  it,  —  or  else, 
by  use  and  personal  humanities,  to  become  first  tolerant  of 
such  monstrous  evil,  and  then  perhaps  learn  to  sympathize 
with  it. 

CCLXVL,      *TO   J.  P.   GELL,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  March  3, 1841. 

There  is  really  something  formidable  in  writing  a  letter  to 
Van  Diemen's  Land.  You  must  naturally  delight  in  hearing 
from  England,  and  I  should  wish  to  give  you  some  evidence 
that  you  are  not  forgotten  by  your  friends  at  Rugby  ;  yet  how 
to  fill  a  sheet  with  facts  I  know  not;  for  great  events  are 
happily  as  rare  with  us  as  they  used  to  be,  and  the  little  events 
of  our  life  here,  the  scene,  and  the  actors,  are  all  as  well  known 
to  you  as  to  ourselves ;  in  this  respect  contrasting  strangely 
with  our  entire  ignorance  of  the  scene  and  nature  of  your  life 
in  Van  Diemen's  Land,  where  every  acre  of  ground  would  be 
to  me  full  of  a  thousand  novelties  ;  perhaps  the  acres  in  the 
towns  not  the  least  so.  Again,  the  gigantic  scale  of  your 
travelling  quite  dwarfs  our  little  summer  excursions.  If  I 
were  writing  to  a  man  buried  in  a  country  parsonage,  I  could 
expatiate  on  our  delightful  tour  of  last  summer,  when  my 
wife,  Mayor,  and  myself,  went  together  to  Rome,  Naples,  and 
the  heart  of  the  Abruzzi.  But  your  journal  of  your  voyage, 
and  the  consciousness  that  you  are  at  our  very  antipodes,  with 
declining  summer  instead  of  coming  spring,  at  the  beginning 
of  your  short  half-year,  while  we  are  beginning  our  long  one ; 
this  makes  me  unwilling  to  talk  to  you  about  a  mere  excur- 
sion to  Italy. 

We  have  been  reassembled  here  for  nearly  four  months ; 
locking  up  is  at  half-past  six,  callings  over  at  three  and  five, 
first  lesson  at  seven.  I  am  writing  in  the-  library  at  Fourth 


LIFE  OF    DR.  ARNOLD.  225 

lesson,  on  a  Wednesday,  sitting  in  that  undignified  kitchen 
chair,  which  you  so  well  remember,  at  that  little  table,  a  just 
proportional  to  the  tables  of  the  Sixth  themselves,  at  which 
you  have  so  often  seen  me  writing  in  years  past.  And,  as  the 
light  is  scarcely  bright  enough  to  show  the  increased  number 
of  my  gray  hairs,  you  might,  if  you  looked  in  upon  us,  fancy 
that  time  had  ceased  to  run,  and  that  we  are  the  identical 
thirty-one  or  more  persons  who  sat  in  the  same  place,  at  the 
same  hour,  and  engaged  in  the  very  same  work  when  you 
were  one  of  them.  The  school  is  very  full,  about  330  boys 
in  all,  quiet  and  well  disposed,  I  believe  ;  but  enough,  as  there 
will  always  be,  to  excite  anxiety,  and  quite  enough  to  temper 
vanity. 

My  wife,  thank  God,  is  very  well,  and  goes  out  on 

the  pony  regularly,  as  usual.  We  went  to-day  as  far  as  the 
turnpike  on  the  Dunchurch  Road,  then  round  by  Deadman's 
Corner,  to  Bilton,  and  so  home.  Hoskyns,  who  is  Sandford's 
curate,  at  Dunchurch,  walked  with  us  as  far  as  the  turnpike. 
The  day  was  bright  and  beautiful,  with  gleams  of  sun,  but  no 
frost.  You  can  conceive  the  buds  swelling  on  the  wild  roses 
and  hawthorns,  and  the  pussy  catkins  of  the  willows  are  very 
soft  and  mouse-like  ;  their  yellow  anthers  have  not  yet  shown 
themselves.  The  felling  of  trees  goes  on  largely,  as  usual, 
and  many  an  old  wild  and  tangled  hedge,  with  its  mossy 
banks,  presents  at  this  moment  a  scraped  black  bank  below, 
and  a  cut  and  stiff  fence  of  stakes  above  ;  one  of  the  minor 
griefs  which  have  beset  my  Rugby  walks  for  the  last  twelve 
years  at  this  season  of  the  year. 

Of  things  in  general  I  know  not  what  to  say.  The  country 
is  in  a  state  of  much  political  apathy,  and  therefore  Toryism 
flourishes  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  commercial  speculation 
goes  on  vigorously.  Reform  of  all  sorts,  down  to  Talfourd's 
Copyright  Bill,  seems  adjourned  sine  die ;  wherefore  evil  of 
all  sorts  keeps  running  up  its  account,  and  Chartism,  I  sup- 
pose, rejoices.  The  clergy  are  becoming  more  and  more 
Newmanite,  —  Evangelicalism  being  swallowed  up  more  and 
more  by  the  stronger  spell,  as  all  the  minor  diseases  merged 
in  the  plague  in  the  pestilential  time  of  the  second  year  of 
the  Pcloponnesian  war.  Yet  one  very  good  bill  has  been 
brought  into  Parliament  by  the  Government,  for  the  better 
drainage  and  freer  room  of  the  dwellings  of  the  poor  in  large 
towns,  and  some  of  the  master  manufacturers  are  considering 
that  their  workmen  have  something  else  beside?  hands  belong- 


226  LIFE  OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

ing  to  them,  and  are  beginning  to  attend  to  the  welfare  of 
that  something.  If  reform  of  this  sort  spreads  amongst  a 
class  of  men  so  important,  I  can  forgive  much  political  apathy. 
Whether  that  unlucky  Eastern  question  will  prove  in  the  end 
the  occasion  of  another  general  war,  no  man  can  tell ;  but  I 
fear  the  full  confidence  of  peace  is  gone,  and  men  no  longer 
look  upon  war  as  impossible,  as  they  did  twelve  months  since. 
God  bless  you,  my  dear  Gell,  and  prosper  all  your  work.  Re- 
member me  very  kindly  to  Sir  John  and  Lady  Franklin. 

CCLXVII.      TO    SIB  JOHN   FRANKLIN,    K.C.B.* 

Rugby,  March  16,  1841. 

I  ought  not  to  have  left  your  kind  letter  so  long  unan- 
swered ;  but  I  have  not,  I  trust,  neglected  its  main  business, 
although  I  cannot  report  any  satisfactory  progress,  for  I  know 
not  in  what  state  the  question  now  is,  and  I  have  been  this 
very  day  writing  to  Mr.  Stephen  to  ask  what  they  are  about, 
and  whether  I  can  be  of  any  further  service. 

My  whole  feelings  go  along  with  Gell's  wishes,  but  I  do 
not  think  that  they  ought  to  be  indulged.  It  is  a  great  happi- 
ness to  live  in  a  country  where  there  is  only  one  Church  to 
be  considered  either  in'law  or  in  equity ;  then  all  institutions 
can  take  a  simple  and  definite  character ;  the  schools  and  the 
Church  can  be  identified,  and  the  teaching  in  the  school-room 
and  in  the  Church  may  breathe  the  same  spirit,  and  differ 
only  so  far  as  the  one  is  addressed  to  adults,  the  other  to  chil- 
dren. All  this  no  one  can  love  more  than  I  do.  I  have  the 
Bishop's  license :  we  have  our  School  Chapel,  where  the  Church 
service  is  duly  performed ;  I  preach  in  it  as  a  Minister  of 
the  Church,  and  the  Bishop  comes  over  every  two  years  to 
confirm  our  boys  in  it.  I  quite  allow  that  my  position  is  that 
which  suits  my  taste,  my  feelings,  and  my  reason  most 
entirely.. 

But  if  I  were  in  Gell's  place,  as  in  many  other  respects  I 
could  not  expect  all  the  advantages  of  England,  so  neither 
could  I  in  this  identification  of  my  school  with  my  Church. 
In  a  British  colony  there  are  other  elements  than  those  purely 
English ;  they  are  involved,  I  think,  in  the  very  word 
rf  British,"  which  is  used  in  speaking  of  our  colonies.  Here, 
in  England,  we  Englishmen  are  sole  masters,  —  in  our  colo- 

*  With  regard  to  the  College  in  Van  Diemen's  Land.     See 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  227 

nies  we  are  only  joint  masters ;  and  I  cannot,  without  direct 
injustice,  make  the  half  right  as  extensive  as  the  whole  right. 

But  whilst  I  quite  acknowledge  the  equal  rights  of  the 
Church  of  Scotland,  I  acknowledge  no  right  in  any  third  sys- 
tem, —  for  a  Church  it  cannot  be  called,  —  to  be  dominant 
both  over  the  Church  of  Scotland  and  over  us.  I  would 
allow  no  third  power  or  principle  to  say  to  both  Churches, 
"  Neither  of  you  shall  train  your  people  in  your  own  way,  but 
in  a  certain  third  way,  which,  as  it  is  that  of  neither,  may 
perhaps  suit  both."  I  would  have  the  two  Churches  stand 
side  by  side,  —  each  free,  and  each  sovereign  over  its  own 
people  ;  but  I  do  not  approve  of  such  a  fusion  of  the  one  into 
the  other  as  would  produce  a  third  substance,  unlike  either  of 
them. 

Now,  I  confess  that  what  I  should  like  best  of  all,  would 
be,  to  see  two  colleges  founded,  one  an  English  college,  the 
other  a.  Scotch  college,  each  giving  its  own  Degrees  in  Di- 
vinity, but  those  Degrees  following  the  Degrees  in  Arts, 
which  should  be  given  by  both  as  a  University.  Each  col- 
lege possessing  full  independence  within  itself,  the  education 
of  the  members  of  each  would  in  all  respects  be  according  to 
their  respective  Churches,  while  the  University  authorities, 
chosen  equally  from  each,  would  only  settle  such  points  as 
could  harmoniously  be  settled  by  persons  belonging  to  differ- 
ent Churches. 

This,  I  think,  would  be  my  beau  ideal  for  Van  Diemen'? 
Land ;  and  that  the  English  college  would  quickly  outgrow 
the  Scotch  college,  —  that  it  would  receive  richer  endowments 
from  private  munificence,  —  that  it  would  have  more  pupils, 
and  abler  tutors  or  professors,  I  do  not  doubt.  But  that 
would  be  in  the  natural  course  of  things,  and  justice  would 
have  been  done  to  the  rights  of  Scotland  as  a  member  of  the 
United  Kingdom. 

The  decisive  objection  to  this,  I  suppose,  would  be  the  ex- 
pense. You  can  have  only  one  college,  and  I  suppose  may 
be  thankful  even  for  that.  What  is  next  best,  then,  as  it  ap- 
pears to  me,  is  still  to  provide  for  the  equal,  but  at  the  same 
time  the  free  and  sovereign  and  fully  developed  action  of  both 
Churches  within  the  same  college,  by  the  appointment  of  two 
clergymen,  the  one  of  the  English,  the  other  of  the  Scotch 
Church,  as  necessary  members  of  the  college  always,  with  the 
title  of  Dean,  or  such  other  as  may  be  thought  expedient, 
Buch  Deans  having  the  direct  charge  of  the  religious  instruc- 


228  Ui'ii   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

tion  generally  of  their  own  people  ;  the  Dean  of  that  Church 
to  which  the  Principal  for  the  time  being  does  not  be-long, 
being  to  his  own  people  in  all  religious  matters  both  Principal 
and  Dean,  but  the  Dean  of  whose  Church  the  Principal  i.s  a 
member,  acting  under  the  superintendence  of  the  Principal, 
and  the  Principal  himself  taking  a  direct  part  in  the  religious 
teaching  of  the  students  of  his  own  communion. 

It  might  be  possible  and  desirable  to  put  the  office  of  Prin- 
cipal altogether  .in  commission,  and  vest  it  in  a  Board  of 
which  the  two  Deans  should  be  ex  officio  members,  and  three 
other  persons,  or  one,  as  it  might  be  thought  fit  Local  knowl- 
edge is  required  to  decide  the  details,  —  but  in  this  way,  if 
Gell  were  English  Dean,  his  power  and  importance  might  be 
equal  to  what  they  would  be  as  Principal;  and  his  position 
might  be  at  once  less  invidious,  and  yet  more  entirely  free 
and  influential. 

This  solution  of  the  difficulty  had  not  suggested  itself  to 
me  before,  but  I  give  it  for  what  it  may  be  worth.  I  believe 
that  I  see  clearly,  and  hold  fast  the  principles  on  which  your 
college  should  be  founded ;  but  different  ways  of  working 
these  principles  out  may  suggest  themselves  at  different  times, 
and  none  of  them  perhaps  will  suit  your  circumstances ;  for  it 
is  in  the  application  of  general  principles  to  any  given  place 
or  condition  of  things,  that  practical  knowledge  of  that  particu- 
lar state  of  things  is  needful,  which  I  cannot  have  in  the  pres- 
ent case.  Still,  the  conclusions  of  our  local  observation  must 
not  drive  us  to  overset  general  principles,  or  to  neglect  them, 
for  that  is  no  less  an  error. 

CCLXVIII.      TO    THE    SAME. 

Rugby,  April  4, 1842. 

Your  letter  of  the  18th  of  August  quite  coincides  with  my 
wishes,  and  satisfies  me  also  that  I  may,  without  injustice,  act 

according   to   them And   I  am  happy  to  say  that 

seems  quite  disposed  to  agree  with  your  view  of  the 

subject,  and  to  make  it  a  standing  rule  of  the  College,  that 
the  Principal  of  it  shall  always  be  a  member  of  the  Church 
of  England,  if  not  a  clergyman.  My  own  belief  is,  that  our 
Colleges  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  are,  with  all  their  faults, 
the  best  institutions  of  the  kind  in  the  world,  —  at  least  for 
Englishmen;  and  therefore  I  should  wish  to  copy  then> 
exactly,  if  it  were  possible,  for  Van  Diemen's  Land.  I  only 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  229 

doubted  whether  it  were  just  to  Scotland  to  give  a  predomi- 
nantly English  character  to  the  institutions  of  a  British  colony ; 
but  your  argument  from  the  establishment  of  the  English  law 
is,  I  think,  a  good  one,  and  mixed  institutions  are  to  my  mind 
so  undesirable,  that  I  would  rather  have  the  College  Scotch 
altogether,  so  far  as  my  own  taste  is  concerned,  than  that  it 
should  represent  no  Church  at  all.  I  have  always  wished, 
and  I  wish  it  still,  that  the  bases  of  our  own,  as  of  other 
Churches,  should  be  made  wider  than  they  are ;  but  the  en- 
largement, to  my  mind,  should  be  there,  and  not  in  the  schools  : 
for  it  seems  a  solecism  to  me,  that  a  place  of  education  for 
the  members  of  a  Church  should  not  teach  according  to  that 
Church,  without  suppressions  of  any  sort  for  the  sake  of  ac- 
commodating others. 

As  to  the  other  point,  —  of  there  being  always  an  English 
and  Scotch  clergyman  amongst  the  Fellows  of  the  College, 

took  your  view  of  the  case  and  I  yielded  to  him 

But,  though  I  do  not  like  to  urge  anything  against  your  judg- 
ment, yet  I  should  like  to  explain  to  you  my  view  of  the  case. 
I  wish  to  secure  to  members  of  the  Scotch  Church  the  educa- 
tion of  their  own  Church,  —  I  mean  an  education  such  as 
their  own  Church  would  wish  them  to  have, — just  as  I  wish 
to  secure  for  our  people  a  full  Church  of  England  education. 
Then,  on  the  other  hand,  I  am  not  afraid  of  sectarian  feelings 
and  struggles,  where  men  live  together,  each  with  a  distinct 
recognized  position  of  his  own,  and  with  his  own  proper  work 
assigned  to  him.  I  dread  much  more  the  effect  of  differences 
not  publicly  recognized,  such  as  those  of  parties  within  the 
same  Church.  If  Roman  Catholics,  as  such,  had  a  college  of 
their  own  at  Oxford,  I  do  not  believe  that  there  would  be  half 
the  disputing  or  proselytizing  which  exists  now,  where  Roman 
Catholic  opinions  are  held  by  men  calling  themselves  mem- 
bers of  our  Church.  A  Scotch  clergyman  has  to  do  with 
Scotchmen,  an  English  clergyman  with  Englishmen.  The 
national  distinction  would  make  the  ecclesiastical  difference 
natural,  as  I  think,  and  would  take  away  from  it  everything 
of  hostility.  But,  however,  as  I  said  before,  I  should  have 
the  greatest  objection  to  pressing  a  point  against  your  judg- 
ment. I  grieve  over  the  difficulty  about  the  name  of  the 
College :  it  seems  to  me  not  a  little  matter ;  and  how  sadly 
does  that  foolish  notion  of  its  being  profane,  help  the  supersti- 
tion to  which  it  professes  to  be  most  opposed,  —  the  supersti- 
tion of  holy  places,  and  holy  things,  and  holy  times.  But 
VOL  ii.  20 


230  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

your  leaving  the  question  to  the  Government  seems  quite  the 
wisest  way  of  settling  it.* 

CCLXIX.   TO  REV.  TREVENEN  PENROSE. 

(Who  had  asked  him  his  opinion  about  sanctioning  various  Provident  Socie- 
ties by  preaching  Sermons  on  their  anniversaries.) 

Rugby,  April  10,  1841. 

My  opinion  on  such  points  as  you  have  proposed  to  me,  is 
not  worth  the  fiftieth  part  of  yours,  so  totally  am  I  without 
the  needful  experience.  But  speaking  as  an  l8iu>Tris,  I  am 
inclined  quite  to  agree  with  you.  These  half-heathen  clubs, 
including,  above  all,  Freemasonry,  are,  I  think,  utterly  un- 
lawful for  a  Christian  man :  they  are  close  brotherhoods, 
formed  with  those  who  are  not  in  a  close  sense  our  brethren. 
You  would  do  a  great  service,  if  by  your  sermons,  aided  by 
your  personal  influence,  you  could  give  the  clubs  a  Christian 
character.  But  their  very  names  are  unseemly.  A  club  of 
Odd  Fellows  is  a  good  joke,  but  hardly  a  decent  piece  of 
earnest.  I  suspect,  however,  that  the  Government  plans  are 
too  purely  economical :  an  annual  dinner  is  so  much  the  usage 
of  all  English  societies,  that  it  seems  hard  to  deny  it  to  the 
poor. 

CCLXX.      *  TO    REV.   J.   T.    ORMEROD. 

Fox  How,  June  19,  1841. 

I  think  that  it  is  very  desirable  to  show  the  con' 

nection  of  the  Church  with  the  Synagogue,  a  point  on  which 
Whately  insists  strongly.  I  should  also  like  to  go  into  the 
question  as  to  the  Bevrepa  Siardgfts  rS>v  aTrocrroAaw,  mentioned  in 
that  famous  fragment  of  Irenaeus.  That  the  Church  system, 
or  rather  the  Priest  system,  is  not  to  be  found  in  Scripture,  is 
as  certain  as  that  the  worship  of  Jupiter  is  not  the  doctrine  of 
the  Gospel;  the  only  shadow  of  an  apostolical  origin  of  il 
rests  on  the  notion  that,  after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem, 
the  surviving  Apostles  altered  the  earlier  Christian  service^ 
and  made  the  Eucharist  answer  to  the  sacrifice  of  the  Temple. 
I  believe  this  to  be  unsupported  as  to  its  historical  basis,  and 
perverted  doctrinally ;  if  there  be  any  foundation  for  the  fact, 

*  This  letter  is,  for  the  sake  of  convenience,  transposed  to  this  place  from 
its  proper  order. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  231 

ft  was  not  that  the  Eucharist  was  to  succeed  to  the  Temple 
sacrifices,  —  one  carnal  sacrifice,  and  carnal  priest  succeeding 
to  another ;  —  but  that  the  spiritual  sacrifice  of  each  man's 
self  to  God,  connected  always,  according  to  Bunsen,  with  the 
commemoration  of  Christ's  sacrifice  in  the  Eucharist,  was  now 
visibly  the  only  sacrifice  anywhere  offered  to  God  ;  and  thus, 
as  was  foretold,  the  carnal  worship  had  utterly  perished,  and 
the  spiritual  worship  was  established  in  its  room.  That  the 
great  Enemy  should  have  turned  his  very  defeat  into  his 
greatest  victory,  and  have  converted  the  spiritual  self-sacrifice 
in  which  each  man  was  his  own  priest,  into  the  carnal  and 
lying  sacrifice  of  the  Mass,  is  to  my  mind,  more  than  anything 
else,  the  exact  fulfilment  of  the  apostolical  language  concern- 
ing Antichrist. 

CCLXXI.       TO    MB.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Fox  How,  June  26,  1841. 

Thank  you  for  your  letter,  and  your  remarks  on 

my  Introduction.  You  speak  of  yourself  as  standing  half- 
way between  Newman  and  me ;  but  I  do  not  think  that  you 
will  or  can  maintain  that  position.  For  many  years  such  a 
middle  position  was  in  fact  that  of  the  majority  of  the  Eng- 
lish clergy ;  it  was  the  old  form  of  High  Churchism,  retain- 
ing much  of  Protestantism,  and  uniting  it  with  other  notions, 
such  as  Apostolical  Succession,  for  which  it  had  an  instinctive 
fondness,  but  which  it  cherished  indistinctly,  without  pushing 
them  to  their  consequences.  Newman  —  and  I  thank  him  for 
it  —  has  broken  up  this  middle  state,  by  pushing  the  doctrines 
of  the  Succession,  &c.,  to  their  legitimate  consequences ;  and 
it  appears  now  that  they  are  inconsistent  with  Protestantism ; 
and  Newman  and  his  friends  repudiate  the  very  name  of  Prot- 
estant, disclaim  the  sole  supremacy  of  Scripture,  and  in  short 
hold  every  essential  tenet  of  Popery,  though  not  of  Roman- 
ism ;  for  they  so  far  agree  with  the  Gallican  Church,  that  they 
would  set  a  General  Council  above  the  Pope  ;  but  the  essence 
of  Popery,  which  is  Priesthood,  and  the  mystic  virtue  of  ritual 
acts  done  by  a  Priesthood,  they  cling  to  as  heartily  as  the 
most  vehement  ultramontane  Papists.  Now  that  the  two 
systems  are  set  front  to  front,  I  do  not  think  that  a  middle 
course  is  possible :  the  Priest  is  either  Christ  or  Antichrist ; 
he  is  either  our  Mediator,  or  he  is  like  the  man  of  sin  in 
God's  temple  ;  the  "  Church  system  '  is  either  our  Gospel,  and 


232  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

St.  John's  and  St.  Paul's  Gospel  is  superseded  by  it,  or  it  is  a 
system  of  blasphemous  falsehood,  such  as  St.  Paul  foretold  was 
to  come,  such  as  St.  John  saw  to  be  "  already  in  the  world." 

I  think  that  you  have  not  quite  attended  to  my  argument 
in  the  Introduction,  when  you  seem  to  think  that  I  have 
treated  the  question  more  as  one  of  a  priori  reasoning,  than  of 
scriptural  evidence.  If  you  look  at  the  paragraph  beginning 
at  the  bottom  of  page  xxix.,  you  will  see,  I  think,  that  it  is 
most  fully  acknowledged  to  be  a  question  of  scriptural  evi- 
dence. It  is  not  my  fault  if  the  scriptural  authority  which 
the  "  Church  system "  appeals  to,  is  an  absolute  nonentity. 
The  Newmanite  interpretation  of  our  Lord's  words,  "  Do  this 
in  remembrance  of  me,"  you  confess  to  have  startled  you. 
Surely  it  may  well  startle  any  man,  for  no  Unitarian  comment  on 
the  first  chapter  of  St.  John  could  possibly  be  more  monstrous. 
Now,  in  such  matters,  I  speak  and  feel  confidently  from  the 
habits  of  my  life.  My  business  as  schoolmaster,  is  a  constant 
exercise  in  the  interpretation  of  language,  in  cases  where  no 
prejudice  can  warp  the  mind  one  way  or  another,  and  this 
habit  of  interpretation  has  been  constantly  applied  to  the 
Scriptures  for  more  than  twenty  years ;  for  I  began  the  care- 
ful study  of  the  Epistles  long  before  I  left  Oxford,  and  have 
never  intermitted  it.  I  feel,  therefore,  even  more  strongly 
towards  a  misinterpretation  of  Scripture  than  I  should  to- 
wards a  misinterpretation  of  Thucydides.  I  know  there  are 
passages  in  the  Scriptures  which  no  man  can  interpret ;  that 
there  are  others  of  which  the  interpretation  is  doubtful ; 
others,  again,  where  it  is  probable,  but  far  from  certain.  This 
I  feel  strongly,  and  in  such  places  I  never  would  speak  other- 
wise than  hesitatingly.  But  this  does  not  hinder  us  from  feel- 
ing absolutely  certain  in  other  cases:  and  the  Newmanite 
interpretations  seem  to  me  to  be  of  the  same  class  as  the 
lowest  Unitarian,  or  as  those  of  the  most  extravagant  fanat- 
ics ;  they  are  mere  desperate  shifts  to  get  a  show  of  author- 
ity from  Scripture,  which  it  is  felt  after  all  the  Scripture  will 
not  furnish ;  for  the  anxious  endeavor  to  exalt  Tradition  and 
Church  authority  to  a  level  with  the  Scripture,  proves  suffi- 
ciently where  the  real  support  of  the  cause  is  felt  to  lie  ;  for 
no  man  would  ever  go  to  Tradition  for  the  support  of  what 
the  Scripture  by  itself  teaches ;  and  in  all  the  great  discus- 
sions on  the  Trinitarian  question,  the  battle  has  been  fought 
out  of  the  Scripture :  no  tradition  L>  wanted  to  strengthen  the 
testimony  of  St.  John. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  233 

I  suppose  it  is  that  men's  individual  constitution  of  mind 
determines  them  greatly,  when  great  questions  are  brought  to 
a  clear  issue.  You  have  often  accused  me  of  not  enough 
valuing  the  Church  of  England,  —  the  very  charge  which  I 
should  now  be  inclined  to  retort  against  you.  And  in  both 
instances  the  charge  would  have  a  true  foundation.  Viewing 
the  Church  of  England  as  connected  with  the  Stuart  Kings, 
and  as  opposing  the  "  good  old  cause,"  I  bear  it  no  affection ; 
viewing  it  as  a  great  reformed  institution,  and  as  proclaiming 
the  King's  supremacy,  and  utterly  denying  the  binding  au- 
thority of  General  Councils,  and  the  necessity  of  priestly 
mediation,  you  perhaps  would  feel  less  attached  to  it  than  I 
am.  For,  after  all,  those  differences  in  men's  minds  which 
we  express,  when  exemplified  in  English  politics,  by  the  terms 
Whig  and  Tory,  are  veiy  deep  and  comprehensive,  and  I 
should  much  like  to  be  able  to  discover  a  formula  which 
would  express  them  in  their  most  abstract  shape ;  they  seem 
to  me  to  be  the  great  fundamental  difference  between  think- 
ing men ;  but  yet  it  is  certain  that  each  of  these  two  great 
divisions  of  mankind  apprehends  a  truth  strongly,  and  the 
Kingdom  of  God  will,  I  suppose,  show  us  the  perfect  recon- 
ciling of  the  truth  held  by  each.  I  think  that  in  opinion  you 
will  probably  draw  more  and  more  towards  Keble,  and  be  re- 
moved farther  and  farther  from  me  ;  but  I  have  a  most  entire 
confidence  that  this,  in  our  case,  will  not  affect  our  mutual 
friendship,  as,  to  my  grief  unspeakable,  it  has  between  old 
Keble  and  me ;  because  I  do  not  think  that  you  will  ever  lose 
the  consciousness  of  the  fact,  that  the  two  great  divisions  of 
which  I  spoke  are  certainly  not  synonymous  with  the  division 
between  good  and  evil ;  that  some  of  the  best  and  wisest  of 
mortal  men  are  to  be  found  with  each  ;  nay,  that  He  who 
is  our  perfect  example,  unites  in  Himself  and  sanctions  the 
truths  most  loved,  and  the  spirit  most  sympathized  in  by 
each ;  wherefore,  I  do  not  think  that  either  is  justified  in 
denouncing  the  other  altogether,  or  renouncing  friendship 
with  it.  I  have  run  on  to  an  enormous  length,  but  your 

letter  rather  moved  me 

If  you  could  see  the  beauty  of  this  scene,  you  would  think 
me  mad  to  leave  it,  and  I  almost  think  myself  so  too.  The 
boys  are  eager  to  be  off,  and  I  feel  myself  that  the  work  of 
Rugby  is  far  more  welcome  when  I  come  to  it  as  a  home  after 
foreign  travelling,  than  when  I  only  go  to  it  from  Fox  How, 
from  one  home  to  another,  and  from  what  is  naturally  the 
20* 


234  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

more  dear  to  the  less  dear.  Yet  I  should  be  very  false,  and 
very  ungrateful  too,  if  I  did  not  acknowledge  that  Rugby  was 
a  very  dear  home ;  with  so  much  of  work,  and  yet  so  much 
of  quiet  as  my  wife  and  I  enjoy  every  day  when  we  go  out 
with  her  pony  into  our  quiet  lanes. 

We  have  been  reading  some  of  the  Rhetoric  in 

the  Sixth  Form  this  half-year,  and  its  immense  value  struck 
me  again  so  forcibly  that  I  could  not  consent  to  send  my  son 
to  an  University  where  he  would  lose  it  altogether,  and  where 
his  whole  studies  would  be  formal  merely  and  not  real,  either 
mathematics  or  philology,  with  nothing  at  all  like  the  Aris- 
totle and  Thucydides  at  Oxford.  In  times  past,  the  neglect 
of  philology  at  Oxford  was  so  shameful  that  it  almost  neutral- 
ized the  other  advantages  of  the  place,  but  I  do  not  think  that 
this  is  so  now ;  and  the  utter  neglect  of  viva-voce  translatiop 
at  Cambridge  is  another  great  evil ;  even  though  by  constru- 
ing instead  of  translating  they  almost  undo  the  good  of  thew 
viva-voce  system  at  Oxford. 

CCLXXII.      TO    THE    SAME. 

Fox  How,  August  1, 1841. 

Thank  you  for  Randell's  letter.  He  is  one  of  th<» 

many  men  whom  the  course  of  life  has  to  my  regret  parted 
me  from  ;  I  do  not  mean  "  parted,"  in  the  sense  of  estranged, 
but  simply  hindered  us  from  meeting.  I  was  very  glad  to  see 
his  judgment  on  the  matters  in  which  I  am  so  interested,  an<? 
rejoice  to  find  how  much  I  agree  with  him.  Indeed  I  do  noJ 
think  that  we  differ  so  much  as  he  imagines ;  I  think  the  ex- 
istence of  Dissent  a  great  evil,  and  I  believe  my  inclinations 
as  little  lead  me  to  the  Dissenters  as  any  man's  living.  But 
I  do  not  think  m  the  first  place  that  the  Christian  unity  of 
which  our  Lord  and  his  Apostles  speak  so  earnestly,  is  an 
unity  of  government,  —  or  that  national  churches,  each  sove- 
reign, or  churches  of  a  less  wide  extent  than  national,  each 
equally  sovereign,  are  a  breach  of  unity  necessarily ;  and, 
again,  if  Dissent  as  it  exists  in  England  were  a  breach  of 
unity,  then  there  comes  the  historical  question,  whose  fault  the 
breach  is  ?  and  that  question  is  not  to  be  answered  summarily, 
nor  will  the  true  answer  ever  lay  all  the  blame  on  the  Dis- 
senters, I  think  not  so  much  as  half  of  it. 

If  you  did  not  object,  I  should  very  much  like  to  write  to 
Randell  myself  on  the  point ;  if  it  were  only  to  know  from 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  235 

tdiat  parts  of  my  writings  he  has  been  led  to  ascribe  to  me 
opinions  and  feelings  which  are  certainly  not  mine,  in  his  im- 
pression of  them. 

CCLXXIII.       TO    THE    REV.    JAMES    RANDELL. 

Fox  How,  September  20, 1841. 

I  read  your  letter  to  Coleridge  with  great  interest,  and 
wished  much  to  write  to  you  about  it,  but  I  fear  that  I  have 
not  tiirie  to  do  so.  It  would  take  rather  a  long  time  to  state 
what  I  think  about  Dissent  and  what  is  called  "  Schism."  I 
think  it  a  great  evil,  as  being  inconsistent  with  the  idea  of  the 
perfect  Church,  to  which  our  aspirations  should  be  continually 
directed.  But,  "in  fsece  Romuli,"  with  historical  Churches, 
and  such  ideas  of  Church  as  have  been  most  prevalent,  Dis- 
sent seems  to  me  to  wear  a  very  different  aspect.  Yet  I  am 
not  partial  to  our  English  Dissenters,  and  think  that  their 
views  are  quite  as  narrow  as  those  of  their  opponents.  And 
what  good  is  to  be  done,  will  be  done,  I  think,  much  sooner" 
by  members  of  the  Church  than  by  Dissenters. 

What  you  say  of  my  books  is  very  gratifying  to  me.  It 
repays  the  labor  of  writing  in  the  best  manner,  to  know  that 
any  thinking  man  has  considered  what  one  has  written,  and 
has  found  in  it  something  to  interest  him,  whether  he  agrees 
with  it  or  no.  By  the  way,  your  criticism  on  a  passage  in  my 
Christmas-Day  Sermon  is  quite  just;  and,  if  my  Sermon 
expresses  any  other  doctrine,*  it  has  failed  in  expressing  my 
meaning.  Surely,  I  do  not  hold  that  the  Godhead  of  the 
Son  is  really  inferior  to  that  of  the  Father,  but  only  KO.T 
oiKovopiav,  —  that  is,  it  is  presented  to  us  mixed  with  an  in- 
ferior nature,  and  also  with  certain  qualities,  visibility,  for 
instance,  which  have  been  assumed  in  condescension,  but 
which  are  still  what  St.  Paul  calls,  "  an  emptying  of  the 
Divinity,"  presenting  it  to  us  in  a  less  absolutely  perfect 
form,  because  it  is  not  merely  itself,  but  itself  with  some- 
thing inferior  joined  to  it. 

CCLXXIT.       TO    THE    REV.   J.    HEARN. 

June  25,  1841. 

I  purpose  leaving  this  place  for  the  Continent  with  my  two 
eldest  sons  on  Monday  next,  and  I  wish  before  we  set  out  to 

*  Viz.  that  Deity  does  not  admit  of  degrees. 


236  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

thank  you  for  your  last  letter ;  and  to  send  my  earnest  gcod 
wishes  for  the  health  and  welfare,  temporal  and  eternal,  of  my 
dear  little  godson.  We  have  been  here  about  a  week,  after  a 
half-year  at  Rugby  very  peaceable  as  far  as  regarded  the 
conduct  of  the  boys,  but  very  anxious  as  regarding  their 
health.  One  boy  died  from  pressure  on  the  brain  in  the 
middle  of  the  half-year;  another  has  died  within  the  last 
week  of  fever ;  and  a  third,  who  had  been  long  in  a  delicate 
state  and  went  home  for  his  health,  is  since  dead  also.  And 
besides  all  these,  four  boys  more  were  at  different  times  at 
the  very  point  of  death,  and  some  are  even  now  only  slowly 
and  with  difficulty  recovering.  You  may  conceive  how  much 
anxiety  and  distress  this  must  have  occasioned  us  :  yet  I  can 
most  truly  say,  that  it  is  as  nothing  when  compared  with  the 
existence  of  any  unusual  moral  evil  in  the  school ;  far  less 
distressing  and  far  less  harassing. 

This  place  is  very  calm  and  very  beautiful^  and  I  think 
would  furnish  you  with  much  employment,  if  you  lived  here 
all  the  year.  But  I  am  so  ignorant  about  gardening  and  agri- 
cultural matters,  that  I  can  do  little  or  nothing ;  and  besides, 
we  are  away  just  at  those  times  of  the  year  when  there  is  most 
to  be  done. 

I  am  very  glad  you  saw  my  old  friend  Tucker.  He  was 
with  us  for  a  few  days  in  April,  and  he  seemed  to  have  de- 
rived nothing  but  good  in  all  ways  from  his  stay  in  India. 
Before  he  went  out  he  had  for  some  time  been  growing  more 
and  more  of  an  Evangelical  partisan,  and  had  acquired  some 
of  the  narrowness  of  mind  and  peculiarity  of  manner  which 
belong  to  that  party.  But  his  missionary  life  seems  to  have 
swept  away  all  those  clouds :  and  I  found  him  now  with  all 
the  simplicity,  hearty  cheerfulness,  affectionateness,  and  plain 
sense,  which  he  had  when  a  young  man  at  Oxford,  with  all 
the  earnestness  and  goodness  of  a  ripened  Christian  superad- 
ded.  It  was  one  of  the  most  delightful  renewals  of  intercourse 
with  an  old  friend  which  I  can  ever  hope  to  enjoy. 

CCLXXV.      TO    THE   REV.   J.   TUCKER. 

Fox  How,  August  2, 1841. 

I  have  heard  of  you  in  various  quarters  since  your 

visit  at  Rugby,  but  I  do  not  at  all  know  what  your  plans  are, 
and  when  you  propose  leaving  England.  If  you  can  pay  us 
another  visit  at  Rugby  before  you  sail,  we  shall  all  earnestly 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  237 

unite  in  entreating  you  to  do  so.  It  was  a  great  gratification 
to  me  to  find  that  many  of  our  children  enjoyed  your  visit 
extremely,  and  have  spoken  both  of  it  and  of  your  sermon 
which  you  preached  in  the  Church  in  a  manner  that  has  been 
very  delightful  to  me. 

For  myself,  my  dear  friend,  your  visit  has  been  a  happiness 
greater  than  I  could  tell  you.  It  assured  me  that  I  still  pos- 
sessed not  only  your  affectionate  remembrances  for  the  sake 
of  old  times,  which  I  never  doubted,  but  your  actual  living 
friendship,  unshaken  by  differences  of  opinion,  whatever  those 
differences  might  be.  I  believe  in  my  own  case,  as  often  hap- 
pens, my  friends  have  exaggerated  those  differences.  Keble, 
I  am  sure,  has  ascribed  to  me  opinions  which  I  never  held, 
not  of  course  wilfully,  but  because  his  sensitiveness  on  some 
points  is  so  morbid,  that  his  power  of  judgment  is  pro  tanto 
utterly  obscured.  The  first  shock  of  perceiving  something 
that  he  does  not  like  makes  him  incapable  of  examining  stead- 
ily how  great  or  how  little  that  something  is.  I  had  feared 
(therein  very  likely  doing  you  injustice)  that,  before  you  left 
England  for  India,  you  had  in  some  degree  shared  Keble's 
feelings,  though  on  different  grounds ;  and  I  did  not  write  to 
you,  though  with  many  a  wish  to  do  so,  because  one  feels  in- 
stinctively repelled,  I  think,  from  communicating  with  an  old 
friend,  except  on  a  footing  of  equal  confidence  and  respect; 
and  I  doubted  your  feeling  these  towards  me,  though  I  did  not 
doubt  your  kindness  and  affection.  But  one  or  two  men  have 
behaved  towards  me  in  the  course  of  my  life  just  as  they  might 
have  done,  being  kind-hearted  and  affectionate  men,  if  I  had 
committed  some  great  crime,  which  rendered  respect  or  friend- 
ship impossible,  though  old  kindness  might  still  survive  it. 
And  this  is  hard  to  bear,  when,  far  from  being  conscious  of 
such  great  fault  in  myself  in  the  points  which  are  objected  to, 
I  hold  my  faith  in  those  points  to  be  the  most  certain  truth  in 
Christ,  and  the  opposite  opinions  to  be  a  most  grievous  and 
mischievous  error,  which  I  only  will  not,  in  the  individual 
cases  of  those  holding  it,  regard  as  they  regard  my  supposed 
error,  because  I  know  that  along  with  it  there  exists  a  truth 
and  a  goodness  which  I  am  clearly  warranted  in  loving  and 
in  believing  to  be  Christ's  Spirit's  work.  But  your  last  visit 
was  so  friendly ;  —  I  perceived,  too,  that  you  could  bear  things 
with  which  you  might  not  agree,  and  saw  and  felt  with  satis- 
faction how  much  there  was  with  which  you  did  agree,  —  that 
I  was  altogether  revived,  and,  if  I  may  use  St.  Paul's  Ian- 


238  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

guage,  "  my  heart  was  enlarged,"  and  I  ventured  to  tell  Fcl- 
lowes  to  send  you  my  new  volume  of  Sermons,  as  to  a  man 
who  might  not  and  would  not  agree  with  all  that  he  found 
there,  but  yet  would  not  be  shocked  at  it,  but  would  believe 
that  it  was  intended  to  serve  the  same  cause  to  which  he  was 
himself  devoted.  And  I  have  had  the  full  intention  of  writing 
to  you  as  in  times  past,  if  you  again  sailed  to  India,  or  if  you 
remained  in  England ;  of  which  intention  be  this  present 
letter  the  first  fruits  and  pledge. 

CCLXXVI.       TO    THE    SAME. 

Fox  How,  August  12, 1841. 

I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  letter,  although, 

to  say  the  truth,  there  were  some  expressions  in  it  which  a 
little  disappointed  me.  I  do  not  know,  in  point  of  fact,  what 
our  differences  of  opinion  are,  and  with  regard  to  Newmanism, 
I  had  supposed  that  we  were  mostly  in  agreement.  I  should 
have  expected,  therefore,  that  generally  you  would  have  agreed 
with  the  Introduction  to  my  last  volume  ;  and  that  your  differ- 
ences would  have  been  rather  with  some  parts  of  the  appen- 
dices. But  I  do  not  mean  by  disappointment  the  finding  more 
or  less  of  disagreement  in  opinion,  but  much  more  the  finding 
that  you  still  look  upon  the  disagreement,  be  it  what  it  may, 
as  a  serious  matter,  by  which  I  understand  you  to  mean  a 
thing  deserving  of  moral  censure ;  as  if,  for  example,  one  had 
a  friend  whom  one  respected  and  loved  for  many  good  qual- 
ities, but  whose  temper  was  so  irritable,  that  it  made  a  consid- 
erable abatement  in  one's  estimate  of  him.  Of  course,  he  who 
believes  his  own  views  to  be  true,  must  believe  the  opposite 
views  to  be  error ;  but  the  great  point  in  our  judgment  and 
feeling  towards  men  seems  to  be  not  to  confound  error  with 
fault.  I  scarcely  know  one  amongst  my  dearest  friends,  ex- 
cept Bunsen,  whom  I  do  not  believe  to  be  in  some  point  or 
other  in  grave  error.  I  differ  very  widely  from  Whately  on 
many  points,  as  I  differ  from  you  and  from  Keble  on  others ; 
but  the  sense  of  errors  is  with  me  something  quite  distinct 
from  the  sense  of  fault,  and  if  I  were  required  to  name  Keble's 
faults  or  yours,  it  would  never  enter  into  my  head  to  think  of 
his  Newmanism  or  your  opinions,  whatever  they  may  be, 
which  differ  from  my  own.  The  fault  would  be,  in  my  judg- 
ment, and  you  will  forgive  me  for  saying  so,  the  feeling  as 
Keble  does,  and  as  I  hoped  that  you  now  did  not,  towards  an 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  239 

error  as  if  it  were  a  fault,  and  judging  it  morally.  "We  are 
speaking,  you  will  observe,  of  such  errors  as  are  consistent 
with  membership,  not  only  in  Christianity,  but  in  the  same 
particular  Church ;  and  I  cannot  think  that  we  have  a  right 
to  regard  such  as  faults,  though  we  have  quite  a  right,  a  right 
which  I  would  largely  exercise,  to  protest  against  them  as 
mischievous,  —  mischievous,  it  may  be,  in  a  very  high  degree, 
as  I  think  Newmanism  is. 

CCLXXVII.       TO    THE    SAME. 

Fox  How,  September  22,  1841. 

I  must  write  a  few  lines  to  you  before  we  leave  Fox  How, 
because  my  first  arrival  at  Rugby  is  likely  to  be  beset  with 
business,  and  I  fear  that  your  time  of  sailing  is  drawing  near. 
Most  heartily  do  I  thank  you  for  your  last  letter,  and  you  may 
be  sure  that  I  will  not  trouble  you  on  the  subject  any  farther. 
Nor  do  I  feel  it  necessary,  for  although  it  may  be  that  there 
is  something  which  I  could  wish  otherwise  still,  yet  I  feel  now 
that  it  need  not  and  will  not  disturb  our  intercourse,  and  there- 
fore I  can  write  to  you  with  perfect  content. 

You  are  going  again  to  your  work,  which  I  feel  sure  is  and 
will  be  blessed  both  to  others  and  yourself.  I  should  be  well 
pleased  if  one  of  my  sons  went  out  hereafter  to  labor  in  the 
same  field,  but  what  line  they  will  take  seems  very  hard  to 
determine.  They  do  not  seem  inclined  to  follow  Medicine, 
and  I  have  the  deepest  abhorrence  of  the  Law,  so  that  two 
professions  seem  set  aside,  and  for  trade,  I  have  neither  cap- 
ital nor  connection.  Meanwhile  I  wish  them  to  do  well  at  the 
University,  which  will  be  an  arming  them  in  a  manner  for 
whatever  may  open  to  them.  We  shall  leave  this  place,  I 
think,  on  Friday.  This  long  stay  has  doubly  endeared  it  to 
us  all,  and  though  I  am  thankful  to  be  able  to  get  back  to 
Rugby,  yet  there  will  be  a  sad  wrench  in  leaving  Fox  How. 
It  is  not  the  mere  outward  beauty,  but  the  friendliness  and 
agreeableness  of  the  neighborhood  in  which  we  mix,  simply 
as  inhabitants  of  the  country,  and  not  as  at  Rugby,  in  an  of- 
ficial relation. 

The  school  is  summoned  for  the  9th  of  October,  but  many 
of  the  boys  will  return,  I  think,  on  Saturday,  so  that  the  work 
will  begin,  probably,  on  Monday  ;  but  as  I  have  some  of  the 
Sixth  Form  down  here,  I  have  not  the  leisure  for  my  History 
I  could  have  desired.  I  trust  that  you  will  go  on  with  your 


240  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

Journal,  and  that  you  will  hereafter  allow  large  portions  of  it 
to  be  printed.  I  am  persuaded  that  it  will  do  more  towards 
enabling  us  to  realize  India  to  ourselves,  than  anything  which 
has  yet  appeared. 


CHAPTER    X. 

LAST   YEAR.  —  PROFESSORSHIP   OF  MODERN  HISTORY  AT  OX- 
FORD.—LAST  DAYS  AT  RUGBY.  — DEATH.— CONCLUSION. 

IT  was  now  the  fourteenth  year  of  Dr.  Arnold's  stay 
at  Rugby.  The  popular  prejudice  against  him,  which 
for  the  last  few  years  had  been  rapidly  subsiding,  now 
began  actually  to  turn  in  his  favor ;  —  his  principles 
of  education,  which  at  one  tune  had  provoked  so  much 
outcry,  met  with  general  acquiescence  ;  —  the  school, 
with  each  successive  half-year,  rose  in  numbers  beyond 
the  limit  within  which  he  endeavored  to  confine  it, 
and  seemed  likely  to  take  a  higher  rank  than  it  had 
ever  assumed  before  ;  —  the  alarm  which  had  once 
existed  against  him  in  the  theological  world  was  now 
directed  to  an  opposite  quarter  ;  —  his  fourth  volume 
of  Sermons,  with  its  Introduction,  had  been  hailed  by 
a  numerous  party  with  enthusiastic  approbation  ;  and 
many  who  had  long  hung  back  from  him  with  sus- 
picion and  dislike,  now  seemed  inclined  to  gather 
round  him  as  their  champion  and  leader. 

His  own  views  and  objects  meanwhile  remained  the 
same.  But  the  feeling  of  despondency,  with  which 
for  some  time  past  he  had  regarded  public  affairs, 
now  assumed  a  new  phase,  which,  though  it  might 
possibly  have  passed  away  with  the  natural  course  of 
events,  colored  his  mind  too  strongly  during  this 
period  to  be  passed  over  without  notice. 

His  interest,  indeed,  in  political  and  ecclesiastical 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  241 

matters  still  continued  ;  and  his  sermon  on  Easter 
Day,  1842,  stands  almost  if  not  absolutely  alone  in  the 
whole  course  of  his  school  sermons,  for  the  severity 
and  vehemence  of  its  denunciations  against  what  he 
conceived  to  be  the  evil  tendencies  of  the  Oxford 
School.  But  he  entertained  also  a  growing  sense  of 
his  isolation  from  all  parties,  whether  from  those  with 
whom  he  had  vainly  tried  to  co-operate  in  former 
years,  or  those  who,  from  fear  of  a  common  enemy, 
were  now  anxious  to  claim  him  as  an  ally  ;  and  it  was 
not  without  something  of  a  sympathetic  feeling  that, 
in  his  Lectures  of  this  year,  he  dwelt  so  earnestly  on 
the  fate  of  his  favorite  Falkland,  "  who  protests  so 
strongly  against  the  evil  of  his  party,  that  he  had 
rather  die  by  their  hands  than  in  their  company  —  but 
die  he  must ;  for  there  is  no  place  left  on  earth  where 
his  sympathies  can  breathe  freely  ;  —  he  is  obliged  to 
leave  the  country  of  his  affections,  and  life  elsewhere 
would  be  intolerable."  And  it  is  impossible  not  to 
observe  how,  in  the  course  of  sermons  preached  during 
this  year,  he  turned  from  the  active  "  course  "  of  the 
Christian  life,  with  its  outward  "  helps  and  hin- 
drances," to  its  inward  "  hopes  and  fears,"  and  its  final 
"  close  ;  "  *  or  how,  in  his  habitual  views  at  this  time, 
he  seemed  disposed,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  to 
regard  the  divisions  of  the  Church  as  irreparable,  the 
•restoration  of  the  Church  as  all  but  impracticable,  and 
"  to  cling,"  as  he  expresses  himself  in  one  of  his  let- 
ters, "  not  from  choice,  but  from  necessity,  to  the 
Protestant  tendency  of  laying  the  whole  stress  on 
Christian  religion,  and  adjourning  his  idea  of  the 
Church  sine  die."  It  was  in  this  spirit  also,  that  he 
began  to  attach  a  new  importance  to  the  truths  relat- 
ing to  a  man's  own  individual  convictions^  which, 
though  always  occupying  a  prominent  place  in  his 
thoughts,  had  naturally  less  hold  upon  his  sympathies 
than  those  which  affect  man  in  relation  to  society. 

*  Sermons  XIII.  —  XXXIV.  in  the  posthumous  volume,  entitled  "  Chris- 
tian Life;  its  Hopes,  its  Fears,  and  its  Close." 

VOL.   II.  21  P 


242  LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

The  controversy  on  Justification  acquired  greater  inter- 
est in  his  eyes  than  it  had  assumed  before  ;  and  he  felt 
himself  called,  for  the  first  time,  to  unfold  his  own 
views  on  the  subject.  The  more  abstract  and  meta- 
physical grounds  of  truth,  divine  and  human,  which 
he  had  formerly  been  accustomed  to  regard  in  its 
purely  practical  aspect,  were  now  becoming  invested 
in  his  mind  with  a  new  value.  The  inseparable  con- 
nection between  truth  and  goodness  which  he  had 
always  insisted  upon,  seemed  to  come  before  him  with 
peculiar  force  from  time  to  time  in  these  his  latest 
thoughts.  In  one  of  the  last  school  Essays  revised  by 
him,  it  was  recollected  with  what  peculiar  emphasis  he 
had  written  at  the  close  of  it,  —  "not,"  as  he  said, 
"  because  there  was  any  particular  place  for  it  in  the 
composition  itself,  but  because  he  wished  to  say  some- 
thing about  it,"  —  the  words,  "  Turn  demum  id  quod 
Verum  est  a  Bono  alienum  licebit  dicere,  cum  Deum 
a  Mundo  sustulerimus."  In  his  latest  lessons  it  was 
observed  how,  in  reading  Plato's  Republic,  he  broke 
out  into  a  solemn  protest  against  the  evil  effects  of  an 
exaggerated  craving  after  Unity  —  or  in  Cicero's 
work,  "De  Divinatione,"  the  contrast  that  he  drew 
between  the  conduct  of  the  later  philosophers  and  the 
Christian  martyrs  with  regard  to  the  established  re- 
ligion. "  Neither  of  the  two  parties  believed  in  it — 
but  the  philosophers  and  augurs  worshipped  and  sacri- 
ficed because  they  thought  it  convenient  to  uphold  the 
'  instituta  majorum  ; '- -just  as  in  Roman  Catholic 
countries  there  are  to  be  found  men  who  would  laugh 
at  the  most  solemn  parts  of  the  service,  at  the  mass 
itself — who  would  burn  a  Protestant,  but  who  believe 
in  Christ  just  as  much  as  Cicero  believed  in  Him. 
But  they  could  not  understand  why  the  Christians 
would  not  act  as  they  did  -—  they  had  no  notion  of  men 
dying  rather  than  act  a  lie  and  deny  what  they  were 
certain  was  a  truth.  It  is  this  which  shows  us  what 
martyrdom  really  was,  and  in  what  the  nobleness  of 
the  martyrs  consisted  —  in  that  they  would  die  sooner 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD.  243 

than  by  their  slightest  action  assist  in  what  they  felt  to 
be  a  lie  and  a  mockery."  And, —  whilst  in  his  latest 
studies  of  early  Christian  history,  in  the  Epistles  of 
Cyprian,  he  dwelt  on  this  endurance  and  self-devotion 
of  the  early  martyrs  with  an  increasing  sympathy  and 
admiration,  which  penetrated  even  into  his  private 
devotions,  and  on  the  instruction  to  be  derived  from 
contemplating  an  age  "  when  martyrdom  was  a  real 
thing  to  which  every  Christian  might,  without  any  re- 
markable accident,  be  exposed,"  *  —  he  was  also  much 
struck  with  the  indications  which  these  Epistles  seemed 
to  him  to  contain,  that  the  Church  had  been  corrupted 
not  only  by  the  Judaic  spirit  of  priesthood,  but  even 
more  by  the  Gentile  spirit  of  government,  stifling  the 
sense  of  individual  responsibility.  "  The  treatment  of 
the  Lapsi,  by  Cyprian,"  he  said,  "  is  precisely  in  the 
spirit  of  the  treatment  of  the  Capuans  by  the  Roman 
Senate,  of  which  I  was  reading  at  the  same  time  for 
my  Roman  History.  I  am  myself  so  much  inclined  to 
the  idea  of  a  strong  social  bond,  that  I  ought  not  to  be 
suspected  of  any  tendency  to  anarchy  ;  yet  I  am  be- 
ginning to  think  that  the  idea  may  be  overstrained, 
and  that  this  attempt  to  merge  the  soul  and  will  of  the 
individual  man  in  the  general  body  is,  when  fully  de- 
veloped, contrary  to  the  very  essence  of  Christianity. 
After  all,  it  is  the  individual  soul  that  must  be  saved, 
and  it  is  that  which  is  addressed  in  the  Gospel.  Do 
consider  the  immense  strength  of  that  single  verse, 
'  Let  every  man  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind.' 
Indeed,  so  strong  is  the  language  of  some  parts  of  the 
New  Testament  in  this  direction,  as  to  be  an  actual 
perplexity  to  me.  St.  Paul's  language  concerning  it, 
I  think,  may  be  explained,  but  the  refusal  of  our  Lord, 
to  comply  with  some  of  the  indifferent  customs,  such 
as  washing  before  meals,  is,  when  I  come  to  consider 
it,  so  startling,  that  I  feel  that  there  is  something  in  it 
which  I  do  not  fully  understand." 

*  See  Serra.  vol.  v.  p.  316. 


244  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

Such  were  the  general  feelings  with  which  he  entered 
on  this  year  —  a  year,  on  every  account,  of  peculiar 
interest  to  himself  and  his  scholars.  It  had  opened 
with  an  unusual  mortality  in  the  school.  One  of  his 
colleagues,  and  seven  of  his  pupils,  mostly  from  causes 
unconnected  with  each  other,  had  been  carried  off 
within  its  first  quarter  ;  and  the  return  of  the  boys 
had  been  delayed  beyond  the  accustomed  time  in  con- 
sequence of  a  fever  lingering  in  Rugby,  during  which 
period  he  had  a  detachment  of  the  higher  Forms  resid- 
ing near  or  with  him  at  Fox  How.  It  was  during  his 
stay  here  that  he  received  from  Lord  Melbourne  the 
offer  of  the  Regius  Professorship  of  Modern  History  at 
Oxford,  vacant  by  the  death  of  Dr.  Nares.  How  joy- 
fully he  caught  at  this  unexpected  realization  of  his 
fondest  hopes  for  his  latest  years,  and  how  bright  a 
gleam  it  imparted  to  the  sunset  of  his  life,  will  best  be 
expressed  by  his  own  letters  and  by  the  account  of  his 
Lectures. 

CCLXXVIII.      TO    THE    REV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

Fox  How,  August  21,  1841. 

You  may  perhaps  have  heard  my  news  already,  but  I  must 
tell  you  myself,  because  you  are  so  much  connected  with  my 
pleasure  in  it.  I  have  accepted  the  Regius  Professorship  of 
Modern  History,  chiefly  to  gratify  my  earnest  longing  to  have 
some  direct  connection  with  Oxford;  and  I  have  thought  with 
no  small  delight  that  I  should  now  see  something  of  you  in 
the  natural  course  of  things  every  year,  for  my  wife  and  my- 
self hope  to  take  lodgings  for  ten  days  or  a  fortnight  every 
Lent  Term,  at  the  end  of  our  Christmas  holidays,  for  me  to 
give  my  Lectures.  I  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  ac- 
cepting the  office,  though  it  will  involve  some  additional  work, 
and  if  I  live  to  leave  Rugby,  the  income,  though  not  great, 
will  be  something  to  us  when  we  are  poor  people  at  Fox 
How.  But  to  get  a  regular  situation  in  Oxford  would  have 
tempted  me,  I  believe,  had  it  been  accompanied  with  ua 
buhiry  at  all. 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  245 

CCXXLIX.      TO    MB.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Fox  How,  September  1, 1841. 

In  the  midst  of  my  perplexities,  practical  and  historical,  I 
am  going  to  indulge  myself  by  writing  to  you.  My  practical 
perplexity  is  about  the  meeting  of  the  school,  which  in  either 
way  involves  a  great  responsibility,  and  the  chance  of  much 
inconvenience  and  loss.  I  believe  that  we  might  meet  next 
week  without  any  real  imprudence,  and  that  the  amount  of 
fever  in  Rugby  is  but  trifling ;  but  if  a  single  boy  were  to 
catch  it,  after  the  two  fatal  cases  of  last  half-year,  the  panic 
would  be  so  great  that  we  should  not  be  able  to  keep  the 
school  together,  or  to  reassemble  it  till  after  Christmas.  .  .  . 

My  historical  perplexity  has  caused  me  many  hours  of 
work,  and  I  cannot  yet  see  land.  It  shows  to  me  how  the 
most  notorious  facts  may  be  corrupted,  even  very  soon  after 
the  occurrence,  when  they  are  subjected  to  no  careful  and  ju- 
dicious inquiry.  Hannibal's  march  from  Capua  upon  Rome, 
to  effect  a  diversion  for  the  besieged  town,  is  of  course  one  of 
the  most  striking  parts  of  the  whole  war.  I  want  to  give  it 
in  detail,  and  with  all  the  painting  possible.  But  it  is  wholly 
uncertain  by  what  road  he  advanced  upon  Rome,  whether  by 
the  Latin  road  direct  from  Capua,  or  by  an  enormous  circuit 
through  Samnium,  — just  the  road  which  we  took  last  summer 
from  Capua  to  Reate,  —  and  so  from  Reate  on  Rome.  Caslius 
Antipater,  Polybius,  and  Appian,  all  either  assert  or  imply 
the  latter.  Livy  says  the  former,  and  gives  an  account  of  the 
march,  from  Fabius,  I  think,  or  Cincius,  which  is  circumstan- 
tial and  highly  probable  ;  but  he  is  such  a  simpleton,  that 
after  having  written  a  page  from  Cincius  or  Fabius,  he  then 
copies  from  some  other  writer  who  had  made  him  take  the 
other  road ;  and,  after  bringing  Hannibal  by  the  Latin  road, 
he  makes  him  cross  the  Anio  to  approach  Rome,  and  tells  di- 
vers anecdotes,  which  all  imply  that  he  came  by  the  Valerian 
or  Salarian  road ;  for  of  course  the  Latin  road  has  no  more 
to  do  with  the  Anio  than  with  the  Arno.  The  evidences  and 
the  probabilities  are  so  balanced,  and  all  the  narratives  are  so 
unsatisfactory,  that  I  cannot  tell  what  to  do  about  it.  And 
the  same  sort  of  thing  occurs  often,  with  such  constant  uncer- 
tainty as  to  the  text,  in  Livy,  —  the  common  editions  being 
restored  conjecturally  in  almost  every  page,  where  the  MSS. 
are  utterly  corrupt,  —  that  the  Punic  War  is  almost  as  hard 
in  the  writing  as  in  the  fighting. 
21* 


246  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

Now,  about  my  Notes,  —  I  offended  in  that  matter  deliber- 
ately, having  always  so  enjoyed  a  history  with  many  Note*, 
and  having  known  so  many  persons  feel  the  same,  that  I  mul- 
tiplied them  purposely.  But  I  quite  agree  with  you  that  the 
text  ought  to  be  intelligible  without  them ;  and  if  you  will  be 
so  kind  as  to  point  out  the  passages  which  are  faulty  in  this 
respect,  I  shall  be  greatly  obliged  to  you,  and  will  try  and 
manage  better  for  the  future. 

I  thank  you  much  for  your  congratulations  about  the  Pro- 
fessorship. I  caught  at  any  opportunity  of  being  connected 
again  with  Oxford;  and  the  visions  of  Bagley  Wood  and 
Shotover  rose  upon  me  with  an  irresistible  charm.  Then  it 
suited  so  well  with  future  living  at  Fox  How,  if  I  may  dare 
to  look  forward ;  giving  me  work  for  my  life,  and  an  income 
for  life,  which,  though  not  large,  would  be  much  to  me  when 
I  had  left  Rugby  (especially  if  the  Americans  go  on  not  pay- 
ing their  just  and  lawful  debts,  whereby  I  shall  lose  more  than 
fifteen  hundred  pounds).  And  now,  whilst  my  boys  are  at 
Oxford,  it  will  take  me  up  there  from  time  to  time,  and  will 
give  me  a  share  in  the  working  of  the  University,  although 
not  a  great  one.  In  short,  there  is  nothing  which  the  Gov- 
ernment could  have  given  me  that  would  have  suited  all  my 
wishes  so  well,  and  great  -nxn  it  was  that  it  fell  vacant  only 
one  week  before  the  Tories  came  into  power. 

Now  as  to  what  is  to  be  done  in  it.  I  shall  follow  your  ad- 
vice, and  ponder  well  before  I  decide  on  anything 

With  regard  to  party  questions,  I  should  write  as  I  am  trying 
to  write  in  my  Roman  History,  avoiding  partisanship  or  per- 
sonalities ;  but,  as  I  have  said  in  the  Preface  to  the  History, 
if  history  has  no  truths  to  teach,  its  facts  are  but  little  worth ; 
and  the  truths  of  political  science  belong  as  much,  I  think,  to 
an  historian,  as  those  of  theology  to  a  Professor  of  Divinity. 
As  an  ecclesiastical  historian,  I  would  try  to  hold  an  equal 
balance  between  Catholics  and  Arians ;  but  not  between  Cathol- 
icism and  Arianism ;  and  so  it  seems  to  me  one  ought  to  deal 
with  the  great  principles  of  Government  and  of  Politics,  and 
not  to  write  as  if  there  were  no  truth  attainable  in  the  matter, 
but  all  was  mere  opinion.  Roman  and  English  history  par- 
ticularly illustrate  each  other ;  but  I  do  not  know  how  I  could 
more  particularly  connect  my  Lectures  with  the  History. 
The  influence  of  the  Roman  Empire  upon  modern  Europe 
would  naturally  often  be  touched  upon  ;  but  the  more  minute 
inquiry  as  to  the  particular  effects  of  the  Roman  law  on  ours, 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  247 

would  be  beyond  my  compass ;  and  the  transition  state  from 
ancient  to  modern  history  is  not  to  me  inviting  as  a  period, 
and  it  has  besides  been  so  often  treated  of. 

is  going  up  to  Trinity  College,  Oxford,  after  the  long 

vacation.  We  do  not  know  him  personally,  but  are  interested 
about  him  for  his  friend's  sake.  If  your  son  Henry  could 
show  him  any  countenance,  I  should  be  very  much  obliged  to 
him,  and  you  know  the  value  of  kindness  shown  to  a  fresh- 
man. 

We  unite  in  love  and  kind  regards  to  you  and  yours.  I 
could  rave  about  the  beauty  of  Fox  How,  but  I  will  forbear. 
I  work  very  hard  at  mowing  the  grass  amongst  the  young  trees, 
which  gives  me  constant  employment.  Wordsworth  is  remark- 
ably well.  I  direct  to  Ottery,  hoping  that  you  may  be  there 
at  peace,  escaped  from  the  Old  Bailey. 

CCLXXX.       TO    SIR    T.    S.    PASLEY,    BART. 

Fox  How,  September  23, 1841. 

The  first  Protestant  Bishop  of  Jerusalem  is  to  be 

consecrated  at  Lambeth  next  Wednesday.  He  is  to  be  the 
legal  protector  of  all  Protestants  of  every  denomination  to- 
wards the  Turkish  government,  and  he  is  to  ordain  Prussian 
clergymen  on  their  signing  the  Augsburg  Confession  and 
adopting  the  Prussian  Liturgy,  and  Englishmen  on  their  sub- 
scribing to  our  Articles  and  Liturgy.  Thus  the  idea  of  my 
Church  Reform  pamphlet,  which  was  so  ridiculed  and  so  con- 
demned, is  now  carried  into  practice  by  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  himself.  For  the  Protestant  Church  of  Jerusalem 
will  comprehend  persons  using  different  Liturgies,  and  sub- 
scribing different  Articles  of  Faith  ;  and  it  will  sanction  these 
differences,  and  hold  both  parties  to  be  equally  its  members. 
Yet  it  was  thought  ridiculous  in  me  to  conceive  that  a  na- 
tional Church  might  include  persons  using  a  different  ritual 
and  subscribing  different  articles.  Of  course  it  is  a  grave 
question  what  degrees  of  difference  are  compatible  with  the 
bond  of  Church  union  ;  but  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
has  declared  in  the  plainest  language  that  some  differences  are 
compatible  with  it,  and  this  is  the  great  principle  which  I  con- 
tended for. 

In  your  letter  of  the  26.  of  August,  you  ask  whether  I 
mink  that  a  Christian  ministry  is  of  divine  appointment. 
Now  I  cannot  conceive  any  Church  existing  without  public 


248  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

prayer,  preaching  and  communion,  and  pome  must  minister  in 
these  offices.  But  that  these  "  some "  should  be  always  the 
same  persons,  and  that  they  should  form  a  distinct  profession, 
and,  following  no  other  calling,  should  be  maintained  by  the 
Church,  I  do  not  think  to  be  of  divine  appointment,  but  I 
think  it  highly  expedient  that  it  should  be  so.  In  the  same 
way,  government  for  the  Church  is  of  divine  appointment, 
and  is  of  absolute  necessity ;  but  that  the  governors  should  be 
for  life,  or  possess  such  and  such  powers,  or  should  be  appointed 
in  such  or  such  a  way,  all  this  appears  to  me  to  be  left  entirely 
open.  I  shall  be  very  anxious  to  hear  what  reports  Malcolm 
gives  of  himself,  when  he  gets  a  little  used  to  his  new  life. 

CCLXXXI.      *TO    REV.   A.   P.    STANLEY. 

Rugby,  September  29, 1841. 

I  have   not  written  to  yo     since  I  accepted  the 

Professorship,  though  it  has  made  me  think  of  you  very  often. 
I  should  like  very  much  to  have  your  opinion  as  to  the  best 
line  to  choose  in  my  lectures ;  the  best  practicable,  that  is,  for 
the  best  &ir\S>s  is  beyond  my  means  to  compass.  I  had 
thought  of  trying  to  do  for  England  what  Guizot  began  so 
well  for  France  ;  to  start  with  the  year  1400,  and  make  the 
first  year's  course  comprise  the  15th  century.  My  most  de- 
tailed historical  researches  happen  to  have  related  to  that 
very  century,  and  it  gives  you  the  middle  ages  still  undecayed, 
yet  with  the  prospect  of  daybreak  near.  I  could  not  bear  to 
plunge  myself  into  the  very  depths  of  that  noisome  cavern, 
and  to  have  to  toil  through  centuries  of  dirt  and  darkness. 
But  one  century  will  show  fully  its  nature  and  details,  the 
ripened  corruption  of  the  Church,  and  in  England  the  ripened 
evils  of  the  feudal  aristocracy,  and  those  curious  wars  of  the 
Roses,  which  I  suppose  were  as  purely  personal  and  party 
wars,  without  reference  to  higher  principles,  as  ever  existed. 
I  think  I  shall  write  to  Sir  F.  Palgrave,  and  put  some  ques- 
tions to  him  which  he  can  answer,  I  suppose,  better  than  any 
one.  Do  you  know  whether  there  exists  in  rerum  natura 
anything  like  a  Domesday  Book  for  the  15th  century?  It 
would  be  very  curious  to  trace,  if  one  could,  the  changes  of 
property  produced  by  the  wars  of  the  Roses,  and  the  growtli 
of  the  English  aristocracy  upon  the  gradual  extinction  of  that 
purely  Norman.* 

*  This  plan,  as  will  be  seen,  he  altered. 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  249 

T  think  of  coming  up  in  Michaelmas  term  to  give  my  In- 
augural Lecture.  The  interest  which  I  shall  feel  in  lecturing 
in  Oxford,  you  can  understand,  I  think,  better  than  most  men. 
As  to  the  spirit  in  which  I  should  lecture  with  respect  to  the 
peculiar  feelings  of  the  place,  the  best  rule  seems  to  me  to 
lecture  exactly  as  I  should  write  for  the  world  at  large ;  to 
lecture,  that  is,  neither  hostilely  nor  cautiously,  not  seeking 
occasions  of  shocking  men's  favorite  opinions,  yet  neither  in 
any  way  humoring  them,  or  declining  to  speak  the  truth,  how- 
ever opposed  it  may  be  to  them.  Oxford  caution  would  in 
me  be  little  better  than  weakness  or  ratting,  especially  now 
that  the  Tories  are  in  the  ascendant. 

CCLXXXII.      TO    W.    EMPSON,   ESQ. 

Rugby,  October  15,  1841. 

As  each  successive  year  passes,  I  turn  to  Fox 

How  with  more  homelike  feelings,  and  our  long  stay  there 
this  summer  has  encouraged  this  greatly.  It  is  one  of  the 
great  recommendations  of  the  Professorship  to  me,  that  it 
will  be  consistent  with  our  living  at  Fox  How,  and  will  only 
call  us  away  for  a  part  of  the  year  to  Oxford,  the  place  to 
which  I  still  have  the  strongest  local  affection  of  any  in  the 
world,  next  to  our  valley  of  the  Rotha. 

The  Spanish  journey  was  a  sad  failure  on  the  whole ;  yet 
I  saw  much  that  I  wanted  to  see  in  France,  and  which  will 
make  it  quite  needless  to  travel  southwest  again ;  and  the 
two  or  three  hours  of  fine  weather  which  we  had  between  St- 
Jean  de  Luz  and  Irun,  gave  me  a  view  of  the  maritime  Pyr- 
enees, and  of  the  union  of  mountain  and  sea  about  the  mouth 
of  the  Bidassoa,  which  I  shah1  not  soon  forget.  The  Landes 
also  delighted  me  from  their  resemblance  to  the  New  Forest : 
the  glades  of  heath,  surrounded  by  wood,  and  the  dark  iron- 
colored  streams  fringed  with  alders,  were  quite  like  the  south 
of  Hampshire,  and  delighted  me  greatly. 

Our  eldest  son  is  gone  up  to  Oxford  this  day  to  commence 
his  residence  at  BallioL  It  is  the  first  separation  of  our 
family,  for,  from  our  peculiar  circumstances,  all  our  nine 
children  have  hitherto  lived  at  home  together,  with  very  short 
exceptions,  but  now  it  will  be  so  no  more. 

I  have  read  Stephens's  article  on  Port  Royal,  with  great 
admiration:  it  seems  to  be  at  once  eloquent,  wise,  and  good. 
Is  it  not  strange  that  the  Guelf  and  Glubelin  contest  should 


250  LIFE    OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

be  again  reviving,  as  in  fact  it  is,  and  the  greatest  questions 
of  our  days  are  those  which  touch  the  nature  and  powers  of 
the  Church  ?  I  have  been  reading  Lamennais,  and  recogniz- 
ing the  true  Guelf  union  of  democracy  and  priestcraft,  such 
as  it  existed  in  Guelf  Florence  of  old.  The  Sans  Culotte, 
with  the  mitre  on  his  head,  and  the  bandage  over  his  eyes,  is 
to  me  the  worst  Sans  Culotte  of  all.  I  am  glad  to  hear  good 
accounts  of  Seton  Carr,  and  greatly  envy  Eton  their  gift  of  a 
writership. 

CCLXXXIII.      TO    KEV.    T.    HILL,   VICAE    OP    CHESTERFIELD. 

(Not  personally  acquainted  with  him.) 

Rugby,  October  29, 1841. 

Allow  me  to  offer  you  my  sincere  thanks  for  your  kind 
letter,  and  for  the  sermon  which  you  have  had  the  goodness 
to  send  me,  and  which  I  have  read  with  great  pleasure.  It  is 
encouraging  to  find  that  there  are  still  clergymen  who  are  not 
ashamed  of  the  term  Protestant,  and  who  can  understand  that 
the  essence  of  Popery  does  not  consist  in  the  accidental  exal- 
tation of  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  but  in  those  principles  which 
St.  Paul  found  in  the  Judaizing  Christians,  even  in  the  very 
beginning  of  the  Gospel,  and  which  are  just  as  mischievous, 
whether  they  happen  to  include  the  doctrine  of  the  supremacy 
of  the  Bishop  of  Rome,  or  no. 

With  regard  to  printing  the  Introduction  to  my  last  volume 
of  Sermons  separately,  I  trust  to  be  permitted  ere  long  to 
publish  the  substance  of  it,  somewhat  enlarged,  in  a  small 
volume,  which  may  yet  exceed  the  size  of  a  pamphlet.  I  am 
very  unwilling  to  publish  again,  in  the  form  of  a  pamphlet,  as 
it  appears  to  me  to  give  a  personal  and  temporary  character 
to  a  discussion  which  belongs  to  all  times  of  the  Church, 
and  really  involves  the  most  fundamental  principles  of  Chris- 
tianity. 

Thanking  you  most  sincerely  for  your  good  wishes,  I  would 
earnestly  and  seriously  crave  to  be  remembered  in  your 
prayers,  and  believe  me  that  to  feel  that  any  of  my  brother 
ministers  of  Christ,  to  whom  I  am  personally  unknown,  are 
yet  interested  about  me,  is  one  of  the  greatest  earthly  en- 
couragements and  comforts  which  God  in  His  mercy  could 
vouchsafe  to  me. 


LIFE   OF  DK.  AKNOLU.  251 

CCLXXXIV.       TO    AN    OLD    PUPIL.      (D.) 

Rugby,  October  30, 1841. 

.....  You  seemed  to  think  that  I  was  not -so  charitable 
towards  the  Newmanites  as  I  used  to  be  towards  the  Roman 
Catholics,  and  you  say  that  the  Newmanites  are  to  be  regarded 
as  entirely  Roman  Catholics.  I  think  so  too,  but  with  this 
grave  difference,  that  they  are  Roman  Catholics  at  Oxford  in- 
stead of  at  Oscott,  —  Roman  Catholics  signing  the  Articles  of 
a  Protestant  Church  and  holding  offices  in  its  ministry.  Now, 
as  I  know  that  you  are  a  fair  man,  and  I  think  that  Oxford 
has  as  yet  not  deprived  you  of  your  wideness  of  mind,  it  is  a 
real  matter  of  interest  to  me,  to  know  how  the  fact  of  these 
men  being  Roman  Catholics  in  heart,  which  I  quite  allow, 
can  be  other  than  a  most  grave  charge  against  them,  till  they 
leave  Oxford  and  our  Protestant  Church.  I  cannot  at  all 
conceive  how  you  can  see  this  otherwise,  any  more  than  I  can 
conceive  how  you  can  acquit  Tract  90  of  very  serious  moral, 
delinquency.  For  surely  the  Feathers  Tavern  petitioners 
would  have  been  quite  as  much  justified  in  retaining  their 

preferments  as  and  are  justified  in  remaining  in 

our  ministry.  Neither  does  it  seem  to  me  to  be  a  just  argu- 
ment respecting  the  Articles,  any  more  than  about  other 
things,  to  insist  that  they  shall  be  everything  or  nothing.  I 
very  gladly  signed  the  Petition  for  alterations,  because  I  agree 
with  you  in  thinking  that  subscriptions  cannot  be  too  carefully 
worded ;  but  after  all,  the  real  honesty  of  a  subscription  ap- 
pears to  me  to  consist  in  a  sympathy  with  the  system  to  which 
you  subscribe,  in  a  preference  of  it,  not  negatively  merely,  as 
better  than  others,  but  positively,  as  in  itself  good  and  true  in 
all  its  most  characteristic  points.  Now  the  most  characteristic 
points  of  the  English  Church  are  two ;  that  it  maintains  what 
is  called  the  Catholic  doctrine  as  opposed  to  the  early  here- 
sies, and  is  also  decidedly  a  reformed  Church  as  opposed  to 
the  Papal  and  priestly  system.  It  seems  to  me  that  here  is 
the  stumbling-block  of  the  Newmanites.  They  hate  the 
Reformation  ;  they  hate  the  Reformers.  It  were  scarce  pos- 
sible that  they  could  subscribe  honestly  to  the  opinions  of  men 
whom  they  hate,  even  if  we  had  never  seen  the  process  of 
their  subscription  in  detail. 

Undoubtedly  I  think  worse  of  Roman  Catholicism  in  itself 
than  I  did  some  years  ago.  But  my  feelings  towards  [a  Ro- 
man Catholic]  are  quite  different  from  my  feelings  towards  [a 


252  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

Newmanite],  because  I  think  the  one  a  fair  enemy,  the  othef 
a  treacherous  one.  The  one  is  a  Frenchman  in  his  own  uni- 
form, and  within  his  own  praesidia ;  the  other  is  the  French- 
man disguised  in  a  red  coat,  and  holding  a  post  within  our 
praesidia,  for  the  purpose  of  betraying  it.  I  should  honor  the 
first,  and  hang  the  second. 

CCLXXXV.      TO    MR.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

(In  allusion  to  an  election  for  the  Professorship  of  Poetry  at  Oxford.) 

Rugby,  November  19,  1841. 

Seriously,  I  should  feel  glad  to  be  able  to  vote  con- 
scientiously for  a  Newmanite,  but,  except  on  matters  of  sci- 
ence, I  hardly  see  how  this  could  be.  That  is,  I  can  conceive 
no  moral  subjects  on  which  I  should  wish  to  see  a  Newmanite 
placed  in  the  situation  of  a  teacher  in  Oxford.  Earnestly  do 
I  wish  to  live  peaceably  with  them  while  I  am  in  residence, 
neither  shall  it  be  my  fault  if  I  do  not.  But  courteous  per- 
sonal intercourse,  nay,  personal  esteem  and  regard,  are  dif- 
ferent things,  I  think,  from  assisting  to  place  a  man,  whose 
whole  mind  you  consider  perverted,  in  the  situation  of  a 
teacher.  That  is,  I  think,  true  in  theory ;  but  what  I  hope  to 
find  when  I  get  up  to  Oxford,  is  that  the  Newmanites'  minds 
are  not  wholly  perverted ;  that  they  have  excellences  which 
do  not  appear  to  one  at  a  distance,  who  knows  them  only  as 
Newmanites ;  and  in  this  way  I  hope  that  my  opinion  of 
many,  very  many,  of  the  men  who  hold  Newman's  views, 
may  become  greatly  more  favorable  than  it  is  now,  because  I 
shall  see  their  better  parts  as  well  as  their  bad  ones.  And  in 
the  same  way  I  trust  that  many  of  them  will  learn  to  think 
more  favorably  of  me.* 

#  Extract  from  a  letter  to  the  same  on  November  23d.  —  "I  am  not  satis- 
fied with  what  I  have  written,  because  I  see  that  it  does  not  express  both 
how  much  I  should  have  enjoyed  voting  with  you,  and  also  how  entirely  I 
agree  with  you  as  to  the  general  principle  that  Oxford  elections  should  not 
be  decided  on  party  grounds.  But  then  this  Newmanism  appears  to  me  like 
none  of  the  old  parties  of  our  youth,  Whig  and  Tory,  High  Church  and 
Low  Church ;  and  it  is  our  estimate  of  this,  I  am  afraid,  which  is  the  great 
difference  between  us.  I  do  not  know,  and  am  almost  afraid  to  ask,  how 
far  you  go  along  with  them ;  and  yet  if  you  go  along  with  them  farther  than 
I  th'ink,  I  am  unconsciously  saying  things  which  would  be  unkind.  Only  I 
am  sure  that  morally  you  are  not  and  cannot  be  what  some  of  them  are,  and 
\  never  look  upon  our  differences  as  by  any  possibility  diminishing  my  love 
for  you.  My  fear  from  mv  experience  in  other  cases  would  have  oeen  thai 
it  would  affect  your  love  for  me,  had  it  not  been  for  that  delightful  letter  o 
yours  just  before  I  went  abroad,  for  which  I  cannot  enough  thank  you." 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  253 

I  go  up  to  read  my  Inaugural  Lecture  on  the  2d  of  Decem- 
ber, and  I  have  written  about  two  thirds  of  it.  I  think  that 
you  will  approve  of  it ;  I  have  tried  earnestly  to  be  cautious 
and  conciliatory,  without  any  concealment  or  compromise. 
We  are  full  to  overflowing,  and  so  it  seems  we  are  likely  to 
be  after  the  holidays.  All  you  say  of  Selwyn  is  quite  in  ac- 
cordance with  what  I  hear  of  him  from  others.  May  God's 
blessing  be  on  him  and  on  his  work. 


CCLXXXVI.       TO    CHEVALIER    BUNSEN. 

Rugby,  November  22, 1841. 

I  rejoice  very  deeply  at  the  prospect  of  your  remaining  in 
England,  not  only  on  personal  grounds,  because  we  shall  keep 
you  among  us,  and  have  Mrs.  Bunsen  here  with  you,  but  also 
publicly,  because  I  delight  to  think  that  the  relations  between 
Prussia  and  England,  most  important  now  to  the  whole  world, 
will  be  watched  by  one,  to  whom  the  peace  and  mutual  friend- 
ship of  both  countries  are  so  precious  as  they  are  to  you. 
The  only  drawback  is,  that  I  fear  this  post,  honorable  and  im- 
portant as  it  is,  may  seem  to  detain  you  from  those  prospects 
of  a  home  in  your  own  land,  in  which  I  can  so  fully  sympa- 
thize, for  we  are  both  approaching  the  age  when  "  ex  longa 
navigatione  jam  portum  prospicimus,"  and,  even  with  the  con- 
sciousness of  undiminished  vigor,  still  the  thought  of  rest 
mingles  in  my  dreams  of  the  future  more  often  than  it  did  ten 
years  ago.  And  yet,  when  I  think  of  the  works  that  are  to  be 
done  —  everywhere  I  suppose  more  or  less,  but  here  in  Eng- 
land works  of  such  vastness  and  of  such  necessity  also  —  I 
could  long  for  years  of  strength,  if  it  might  be,  to  be  able 
to  do  something  where  the  humblest  efforts  are  so  needed. 

I  go  up  to  Oxford  on  the  2d  of  December,  Thursday  week, 
to  read  my  Inaugural  Lecture.  I  suppose  it  is  too  much 
to  hope  that  you  could  be  there,  but  it  would  give  me  the 
greatest  pleasure  to  utter  my  first  words  in  Oxford  in  your 
hearing.  I  am  going  to  give  a  general  sketch  first  of  the 
several  parts  of  History  generally,  and  their  relation  to  each 
other,  and  then  of  the  peculiarities  of  Modern  History.  This 
will  do  very  well  for  an  Inaugural  Lecture ;  —  but  what  to 
choose  for  my  course  after  we  return  from  Fox  How  I  can 
scarcely  tell,  considering  how  little  time  I  shall  have  for  any 
deep  research,  and  how  important  it  is  at  the  same  time  that 

VOL.  ii.  22 


254  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

my  first  Lectures  should  not  be  superficial Our  Ex- 
amination begins  on  Wednesday  ;  still,  as  Thucydides  is  done, 
and  gone  to  the  press,  and  as  my  Lecture  will  be  finished,  I 
hope,  in  one  or  two  evenings  more,  I  expect  to  be  able  to  go 
on  again  with  my  History  before  the  end  of  the  week,  and  I 
may  do  a  little  in  it  before  we  go  to  Fox  How. 

On  the  2d  of  December  he  entered  on  his  Professorial 
duties,  by  delivering  his  Inaugural  Lecture.  His 
school  work  not  permitting  him  to  be  absent  more 
than  one  whole  day,  he  left  Rugby  with  Mrs.  Arnold, 
very  early  in  the  morning,  and  occupying  himself  from 
the  time  it  became  light  in  looking  over  the  school 
exercises,  reached  Oxford  at  noon.  The  day  had  been 
looked  forward  to  with  eager  expectation,  and  the 
usual  lecture-rooms  in  the  Clarendon  Buildings  being 
unable  to  contain  the  crowds  that,  to  the  number  of 
four  or  five  hundred,  nocked  to  hear  him,  the  "  The- 
atre "  was  used  for  the  occasion ;  and  there,  its  whole 
area  and  lower  galleries  entirely  filled,  the  Professor 
rose  from  his  place,  amidst  the  highest  University 
authorities  in  their  official  seats,  and  in  that  clear, 
manly  voice,  which  so  long  retained  its  hold  on  the 
memory  of  those  who  heard  it,  began,  amidst  deep 
silence,  the  opening  words  of  his  Inaugural  Lecture. 

Even  to  an  indifferent  spectator,  it  must  have  been 
striking,  amidst  the  general  decay  of  the  professorial 
system  in  Oxford,  and  at  the  time  when  the  number  of 
hearers  rarely  exceeded  thirty  or  forty  students,  to  see 
a  Chair,  in  itself  one  of  the  most  important  in  the 
place,  —  but  which,  from  the  infirmities  of  the  late 
Professor,  had  been  practically  vacant  for  nearly  twenty 
years,  —  filled  at  last  by  a  man  whose  very  look  and 
manner  bespoke  a  genius  and  energy  capable  of  dis- 
charging its  duties,  as  they  had  never  been  discharged 
before  ;  and  at  that  moment  commanding  an  audience 
unprecedented  in  the  range  of  Academical  memory ; 
the  oppressive  atmosphere  of  controversy,  hanging  at 
that  particular  period  so  heavily  on  the  University, 


LIFE   OF   DR.  ARNOLD  255 

was  felt  at  least  for  the  time  to  be  suddenly  broken  ; 
and  the  whole  place  to  have  received  an  element  of 
freshness  and  vigor,  such  as  in  the  course  of  the  Lec- 
ture itself  he  described  in  his  sketch  of  the  renovation 
of  the  worn-out  generations  of  the  Roman  Empire  by 
the  new  life  and  energy  of  the  Teutonic  races.  But 
to  many  of  his  audience  there  was  the  yet  deeper 
interest  of  again  listening  to  that  well-known  voice, 
and  gazing  on  that  well-known  face,  in  the  relation  of 
pupils  to  their  teacher,  —  of  seeing  him  at  last,  after 
years  of  misapprehension  and  obloquy,  stand  in  his 
proper  place,  in  his  Professorial  robes,  and  receive  a 
tribute  of  respect,  so  marked  and  so  general,  in  his 
own  beloved  Oxford,  —  of  hearing  him  unfold,  with 
characteristic  delight,  the  treasures  of  his  favorite 
study  of  History ;  and  with  an  emotion,  the  more 
touching  for  its  transparent  sincerity  and  simplicity, 
declare  "  how  deeply  he  valued  the  privilege  of  ad- 
dressing his  audience  as  one  of  the  Professors  of  Ox- 
ford,"—  how  "  there  was  no  privilege  which  he  more 
valued,  no  public  reward  or  honor  which  could  be  to 
him  so  welcome."  * 

It  was  curious  that  the  Professorship  should  have 
twice  seemed  to  be  on  the  point  of  escaping  from  his 
hold ;  once  by  an  accidental  mistake  shortly  after  his 
appointment,  and  now,  immediately  after  his  Inaugural 
Lecture,  by  various  difficulties,  which  arose  from  im- 
perfect information  respecting  the  regulations  of  an 
office  that  had  been  so  long  dormant.  But  these  dif- 
ficulties, which  are  explained,  so  far  as  is  necessary,  in 
the  ensuing  letters,  were  removed  on  a  more  complete 
understanding  of  them  between  himself  and  the  Uni- 
versity authorities.  The  requirements  to  which  he 
had  refused  to  assent  as  impracticable,  were  found  to 
be  no  part  of  the  original  institution  ;  and  accordingly, 
finding  that  he  could  still  retain  his  office  after  finish- 
vug  the  first  seven  of  his  Lectures,  during  the  earlier 

*  Inaug.  Lect.  p.  43, 


256  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

part  of  his  Christmas  vacation  at  Fox  How,  he  came 
up  to  Oxford  to  deliver  them  during  the  first  three 
weeks  of  the  Lent  Term  of  1842,  during  which  he 
resided  there  with  his  whole  family. 

The  recollections  of  that  time  will  not  easily  pass 
away  from  the  memory  of  his  audience.  There  were 
the  Lectures  themselves,  with  the  unwonted  concourse 
which,  to  the  number  of  two  or  three  hundred,  flocked 
day  after  day  to  the  Theatre  to  listen  with  almost 
breathless  attention  to  a  man,  whose  opinions,  real  or 
supposed,  had  been  in  the  minds  of  many  of  his  hear- 
ers so  long  associated  with  everything  most  adverse  to 
their  own  prepossessions  :  there  was  his  own  unfeigned 
pleasure,  mingled  with  his  no  less  unfeigned  surprise, 
at  the  protracted  and  general  enthusiasm  which  his 
presence  enkindled ;  his  free  acknowledgment  that  the 
favor  then  shown  to  him  was  in  great  measure  the 
result  of  circumstances  over  which  he  had  no  control, 
and  that  the  numerous  attendance  which  his  Lectures 
then  attracted  was  no  sure  pledge  of  its  continuance. 
There  are  many,  too,  who  will  love  to  recall  his  more 
general  life  in  the  place  ;  the  elastic  step  and  open 
countenance,  which  made  his  appearance  so  conspicu- 
ous in  the  streets  and  halls  of  Oxford ;  the  frankness 
and  cordiality  with  which  he  met  the  welcome  of  his 
friend  and  pupils  ;  the  anxiety  to  return  the  courtesies 
with  which  he  was  received  both  by  old  and  young ; 
the  calm  and  dignified  abstinence  from  all  contro- 
versial or  personal  topics  ;  the  interest  of  the  meeting 
at  which,  within  the  walls  of  their  common  college,  he 
became  for  the  first  time  personally  acquainted  with 
that  remarkable  man,*  whose  name  had  been  so  long 
identified  in  his  mind  with  the  theological  opinions  of 
which  he  regarded  Oxford  as  the  centre.  All  his  early 
love  for  the  place  and  its  associations  returned,  to- 
gether witli  the  deeper  feelings  imparted  by  later 
years  ;  day  by  day,  on  his  return  from  Oriel  Chapel  to 

*  "  February  2,  Wednesday.    Dined  in  hall  at  Oriel,  and  met  Newman 
Evening  at  Hawkins's."  —  Entry  from  MS.  Journal. 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  257 

his  house  in  Beaumont  Street,  he  delighted  to  linger 
in  passing  the  magnificent  buildings  of  the  Radcliffe 
Square,  glittering  with  the  brightness  of  the  winter 
morning  ;  and,  as  soon  as  his  day's  work  was  over,  he 
would  call  his  children  or  his  pupils  around  him,  and 
with  the  ordnance  map  in  his  hand,  set  out  to  explore 
the  haunts  of  his  early  youth,  un visited  now  for  more 
than  twenty  years  ;  but  still  in  their  minutest  details 
—  the  streams,  the  copses,  the  solitary  rock  by  Bagley 
Wood,  the  heights  of  Shotover,  the  broken  field  be- 
hind Ferry  Hincksey,  with  its  several  glimpses  of  the 
distant  towers  and  spires  —  remembered  with  the 
freshness  of  yesterday. 

"  And  so  ends  our  stay  in  Oxford,"  were  the  few 
words  at  the  close  of  his  short  daily  journal  of  en- 
gagements and  business,  "  a  stay  of  so  much  pleasure 
in  all  ways  as  to  call  for  the  deepest  thankfulness. 
May  God  enable  me  to  work  zealously  and  thankfully 
through  Jesus  Christ." 

In  turning  from  the  personal  to  the  public  interest 
of  his  Professorial  career,  its  premature  close  at  once 
interposes  a  bar  to  any  full  consideration  of  it ;  in  this 
respect  so  striking  a  contrast  to  the  completeness  of  his 
life  at  Rugby,  in  its  beginning,  middle,  and  end.  Yet 
even  in  that  short  period,  the  idea  of  his  office  had 
presented  itself  to  him  already  in  so  lively  a  form  as 
to  impart  a  more  than  temporary  interest  both  to  what 
he  did  and  what  he  intended  to  do. 

His  actual  course  was  purely  and  in  every  sense  of 
the  word  "  introductory."  As  the  design  of  his  first 
residence  in  Oxford  was  not  to  gain  influence  over  the 
place  so  much  as  to  familiarize  himself  with  it  after  his 
long  absence  ;  so  the  object  of  his  first  Lectures  was 
not  so  much  to  impart  any  historical  knowledge,  as  to 
state  his  own  views  of  history,  and  to  excite  an  inter- 
est in  the  study  of  it.  The  Inaugural  Lecture  was  a 
definition  of  History  in  general,  and  of  Modern  His- 
tory in  particular ;  the  eight  following  Lectures  were 

22*  Q 


258  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

the  natural  expansion  of  this  definition  ;  and  the  state- 
ment of  such  leading  difficulties  as  he  conceived  a 
student  would  meet  in  the  study  first  of  the  external 
life,  and  then  of  the  internal  life  of  nations.  They 
were  also  strictly  "  Lectures  ;  "  it  is  not  an  author 
and  his  readers,  but  the  Professor  and  his  hearers,  that 
are  brought  before  us.  Throughout  the  course,  but 
especially  in  its  various  digressions,  is  to  be  discerned 
his  usual  anxiety,  —  in  this  case  almost  as  with  a  pro- 
phetic foreboding,  —  to  deliver  his  testimony  before  it 
was  too  late  on  the  subjects  next  his  heart ;  which 
often  imparts  to  them  at  once  the  defect  and  the  inter- 
est of  the  outpouring  of  his  natural  conversation.  And 
again  it  must  be  remembered,  that  they  were  addressed, 
not  to  the  world  but  to  Oxford  ;  no  one  but  an  Oxford 
man  could  have  delivered  them  —  no  one  but  an  Ox- 
ford man  could  thoroughly  enter  into  them  ;  it  was 
the  wants  of  Oxford  that  he  endeavored  to  supply,  the 
tendencies  of  Oxford  that  he  presupposed,  the  scenery 
of  Oxford  that  supplied  his  illustrations.  But  with 
these  allowances,  they  are  not  a  fragment  but  a  whole, 
not  brought  together  at  random,  but  based  upon  a 
regular  plan  ;  though,  from  their  peculiarly  personal 
and  local  character,  they  will  probably  never  be  read 
with  an  interest  equal  to  that  with  which  they  were 
heard. 

Having  made  this  introduction  to  his  Professorial 
duties,  he  felt  that  those  duties  themselves  were  yet  to 
begin.  Their  details,  of  course,  were  not  yet  fixed  in 
his  own  mind,  or,  so  far  as  they  were  contemplated  by 
him,  would  have  been  open  to  subsequent  modifica- 
tions. But  their  general  outline  had  already  assumed 
a  definite  shape.  So  long  as  he  remained  at  Rugby, 
his  visits  must  necessarily  have  been  confined  to  little 
more  than  three  weeks  every  year,  a  disadvantage 
which  seemed  to  him  in  some  measure  counterbal- 
anced by  the  influence  and  opportunities  of  his  station 
as  Head-master  of  a  great  public  school.  During  these 
periods,  which  would  have  been  extended  after  his 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  259 

retirement  from  Rugby,  he  intended  to  give  his  regu- 
lar course  of  Lectures,  which  were  naturally  the  chief, 
but  not  in  his  judgment  the  only  duty  of  his  office.  It 
was  his  hope  to  excite  a  greater  interest  in  History 
generally  than  existed  in  the  University :  and  with  a 
view  to  this  it  had  been  his  intention,  when  first  he 
accepted  the  chair,  —  an  intention  which  was  sub- 
sequently suspended  during  the  reconsideration  of  the 
Statutes  of  the  Professorship,  —  to  devote  the  salary, 
so  long  as  he  remained  at  Rugby,  to  the  foundation  of 
scholarships  in  Modern  History.  Even  of  the  Lectures 
themselves,  as  of  his  school  lessons  at  Rugby,  he  felt 
that  "  they  may  assist  our  efforts,  but  can  in  no  way 
supersede  them."  And  accordingly,  in  the  last  Lec- 
ture he  mentioned  the  various  authorities  connected 
with  the  subject  of  his  intended  course  for  the  next 
year,  in  "  the  hope  that  many  might  thus  co-operate, 
and  by  their  separate  researches  collect  what  no  one 
man  could  have  collected  alone ; "  knowing  that  if 
"  any  one  shall  learn  anything  from  me,  he  may  be 
sure  also  that  he  may  impart  something  to  me  in 
return,  of  which  I  was  ignorant." 

And  further,  he  looked  forward  to  the  position 
belonging  to  him,  not  merely  as  a  lecturer  in  History, 
but  as  one  of  the  Professorial  body  in  Oxford,  to  the 
insight  which  he  should  gain  into  the  feelings  of  the 
place,  to  the  influence  which  he  might  exercise  by 
intercourse  with  the  younger  students,  and  to  the 
share  which  he  might  take  amongst  the  leading  mem- 
bers of  the  University,  in  attempting  to  carry  out  some 
of  those  academical  changes  which  he  had  long  had  at 
heart.  Nor  did  he  overlook,  in  the  existing  state  of 
Oxford,  the  importance  of  his  station  as  a  counterpoise 
to  what  he  believed  to  be  its  evil  tendencies,  though  at 
the  same  time  it  was  in  full  sincerity  that  he  assured 
his  audience,  in  his  parting  address  to  them,  "  He 
must  be  of  a  different  constitution  from  mine  who  can 
wish,  in  the  discharge  of  a  public  duty  in  our  common 
University,  to  embitter  our  academical  studies  witk 


260  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

controversy,  to  excite  angry  feelings  in  a  place  where 
he  has  never  met  with  anything  but  kindness,  a  place 
connected  in  his  mind  with  recollections,  associations, 
and  actual  feelings,  the  most  prized  and  the  most  de- 
lightful." 

With  regard  to  the  subject  of  his  Lectures,  it  was 
nis  intention  to  deliver  a  yearly  course  of  at  least  eight 
Lectures,  in  which  he  was  to  endeavor  to  do  for  Eng- 
lish History  what  Guizot  in  his  Lectures  on  the  Civil- 
ization of  France  had  begun  for  French  History.  His 
first  design  had  been,  as  has  already  appeared,  to  have 
started  with  the  15th  century.  But  upon  its  being 
represented  to  him  that  this  could  hardly  be  taken  as 
a  fair  representation  of  the  Middle  Ages,  he  finally 
resolved  on  the  plan  which  he  announced  in  his  last 
Lecture,  of  commencing  with  the  14th  century,  not  as 
being  equally  with  the  13th  century  a  complete  speci- 
men of  the  system  in  Europe  generally,  but  as  being 
the  period  in  which  English  institutions  and  characters 
first  acquire  any  special  interest,  and  so  more  fitted  for 
the  design  of  his  own  Lectures. 

In  these  successive  courses  he  would  have  been  en- 
abled to  include  not  only  many  new  fields  of  inquiry, 
but  most  of  those  subjects  which  had  been  long  the 
subjects  of  his  study  and  interest,  and  which  he  had 
only  been  withheld  from  treating  by  want  of  time  and 
opportunity.  His  early  studies  of  the  contest  of  Charles 
the  Bold  and  of  Louis  XL,  and  of  the  fate  of  John 
Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague,  of  which  his  mind  had 
always  retained  a  lively  impression  :  —  his  somewhat 
later  studies  of  the  times  of  the  English  Reforma- 
tion, in  which  he  used  to  say  it  was  necessary,  above 
all  other  historical  periods,  "  not  to  forget  the  badness 
of  the  agents  in  the  goodness  of  the  cause,  or  the  good- 
ness of  the  cause  in  the  badness  of  the  agents  ; "  — 
would  here  have  found  their  proper  places.  He  had 
long  desired,  and  now  doubtless  would  have  endeav- 
ored, fully  to  describe  the  reigns  of  the  first  two 
Georges,  "  the  deep  calm  of  the  first  seventy  years  o/ 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  261 

the  eighteenth  century,"  which,  as  "  the  abused  trial 
time  of  modern  Europe,  and  as  containing  within  itself 
the  seeds  of  our  future  destiny,"  had  always  had  such 
a  hold  upon  his  interest,  that  at  one  time  he  was  on 
the  point  of  sacrificing  to  a  detailed  exposition  of  this 
period  even  his  History  of  Rome.  And  here,  also,  he 
would  have  aimed  at  realizing  some  of  those  more 
general  views,  for  which  his  office  would  have  given 
him  ample  scope  —  his  long-cherished  intention  of 
bringing  the  "  Politics  "  of  his  favorite  Aristotle  to  bear 
on  the  problems  of  modern  times  and  countries,  —  his 
anxiety  to  call  public  attention  to  the  social  evils  of 
the  lower  classes  in  England,  which  he  would  have 
tried  to  analyze  and  expose  in  the  process  of  their  for- 
mation and  growth,  —  his  interest  in  tracing  the  gen- 
eral laws  of  social  and  political  science,  and  the  symp- 
toms of  advancing  age  in  the  human  race  itself ;  and 
his  longing  desire  according  to  his  idea  *  of  what  the 
true  history  of  the  Church  should  be,  of  unfolding  all 
the  various  elements,  physical  and  intellectual,  social 
and  national,  by  which  the  moral  character  of  the 
Christian  world  has  been  affected,  and  of  comparing 
the  existing  state  of  European  society  with  the  ideal 
Church  in  the  Apostolical  age,  or  in  his  own  anticipa- 
tions of  the  remote  future. 

This  was  to  be  his  ordinary  course.  The  statutes  of 
his  Professorship  required,  in  addition,  terminal  Lec- 
tures on  Biography.  In  these  accordingly,  —  though 
intending  to  diversify  them  by  occasional  Lectures 
on  general  subjects,  such  as  Art  or  Language,  —  he 
meant  to  furnish,  as  it  were,  the  counterpoise  to  the 
peculiarly  English  and  political  element  in  his  regular 
course,  by  giving  not  national,  but  individual  life,  not 
British,  but  European  History.  Thus  the  first  was  to 
have  been  on  "  The  Life  and  Time  of  Pope  Gregory 
the  First,  or  the  Great,"  as  the  name  that  stands  at 
the  opening  of  the  history  of  Christian  Europe.  The 

*  See  Sermons,  vol.  ir  p.  111. 


262  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

next  would  have  been  Charlemagne,  whose  coronation 
he  had  already  selected  as  the  proper  termination  of 
Ancient  History ;  and  along  with  or  succeeding  him,  the 
Life  of  Alfred.  What  names  would  have  followed  can 
only  be  conjectured.  But  he  had  intended  to  devote 
one  Lecture  to  Dante,  in  the  fourteenth  century ;  and 
there  can  be  no  doubt,  without  speculating  on  the 
wide  field  of  later  times,  that  one  such  biography 
would  have  described  "  the  noblest  and  holiest  of 
monarchs,  Louis  IX. ;  "  and  that  he  would  have  taken 
this  opportunity  of  recurring  to  the  eminent  Popes 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  Gregory  VII.  and  Innocent  III., 
whose  characters  he  had  vindicated  in  his  earlier 
works,*  long  before  that  great  change  in  the  popular 
view  respecting  them,  which  in  this,  as  in  many  other 
instances,  he  had  forestalled  at  a  time  when  his  opin- 
ion was  condemned  as  the  height  of  paradox. 

How  far  any  or  all  of  these  plans  would  have  been 
realized  —  what  effect  they  would  have  had  upon  the 
University  or  upon  English  Literature  —  what  would 
have  been  the  result  of  his  coming  into  personal  con- 
tact with  men,  whom  he  had  up  to  this  time  known  or 
regarded  only  as  the  representatives  of  abstract  sys- 
tems,—  how  far  the  complete  renewal  of  his  inter- 
course with  Oxford  would  have  brought  him  that 
pleasure,  which  he  fondly  anticipated  from  it,  —  are 
questions  on  which  it  is  now  useless  to  speculate.  The 
Introductory  Lectures  were  to  be  invested  with  the 
solemnity  of  being  the  last  words  which  he  spoke  in 
his  beloved  University.  The  expressions,  always  habit- 
ual to  him,  but  in  this  volume  occurring  with  more 
than  usual  frequency  :  —  "  if  I  am  allowed  to  resume 
these  Lectures  next  year" — "  if  life  and  health  be 
spared  me  "  —  "  if  God  shall  permit,"  were  to  be  justi- 
fied by  his  own  unexpected  call ;  the  anxiety  which  he 
describes  when  a  man  is  cut  off  by  sudden  death,  "  to 
know  whether  his  previous  words  or  behavior  indicated 

*  Pamphlet  on  "  the  Roman  Catholic  Claims,"  in  1829,  and  on  "  th» 
Principles  of  Churcu  Reform."  in  1833. 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  263 

any  sense  of  his  coming  fate,"  was  to  be  exemplified  in 
his  own  case  to  the  very  letter.* 

CCLXXXVII.       TO    KEV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

Rugby,  December  4, 1841. 

I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  notices  of  my  Lecture. 
With  regard  to  the  influence  of  the  Jews,  I  could  not  have 
noticed  that  as  a  new  element,  because  it  has  already  been  at 
work  before,  and  I  was  considering  merely  what  prospect 
there  was  of  any  new  race  arising,  to  add  a  new  power  to 
those  which  have  hitherto  been  in  operation. 

With  regard  to  the  other  two  points,  I  am  afraid  that  there 
will  be  a  difference  between  us,  though  I  am  not  sure  how  far 
we  differ  as  to  the  object  of  a  state.  I  liked  the  first  part  of 
Gladstone's  book  as  to  its  conclusions,  though  I  did  not  much 
like  all  his  arguments.  In  the  second  part  I  differed  from 
him  utterly. 

I  did  not  mean  to  say  anything  about  the  Church  more 
than  might  be  said  by  all  persons  of  whatever  opinions,  nor 
more,  indeed,  than  is  implied  by  the  very  fact  of  an  Estab- 
lishment. I  do  not  think  that  my  words  said  anything  about 
the  Church  being  an  instrument  in  the  State's  hand,  either  ex- 
pressly or  by  implication.  Certainly  I  did  not  mean  to  say 
a  word  on  that  topic  which  could  give  suspicion  to  any  one  ; 
for  of  course  it  was  my  desire  to  have  at  any  rate  a  peaceable 
beginning. 

We  both  enjoyed  our  day  extremely,  and  it  has  given  me 
a  very  good  heart  for  my  next  appearance  in  Oxford.  We 
got  home  about  eleven,  and  found  all  well.  We  have  still 
more  than  a  fortnight  before  we  start  for  Westmoreland. 

CCLXXXVIII.       TO    THE    KEV.    F.    C.    BLACKSTONE. 

Rugby,  December  17,  1841. 

I  believe  that  my  Professorship  pleases  me  even 

more  than  that  of  Ecclesiastical  History,  even  with  a  stall  at 
Christ  Church  added  to  it.  I  do  not  wish  to  leave  Rugby 
yet,  as  the  income  of  a  stall  would  not  enable  me  to  educate 
my  sons  nearly  as  well  as  I  can  do  at  present,  besides  the 
extreme  comfort  of  having  their  school  education  completed 

*  Lectures  on  Modern  History,  first  edition,  pp.  139, 151, 155. 


2G4  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

under  my  own  teaching.  And  then  Modern  History  embrace* 
all  that  I  most  want  to  touch  upon  in  Ecclesiastical  History, 
and  has  much  besides  of  the  deepest  interest  to  me,  which  I 
could  not  have  included  under  the  other.  I  cannot  tell  you 
the  delight  which  I  have  in  being  able  to  speak  at  Oxford  on 
the  points  which  I  am  so  fond  of;  and  my  Inaugural  Lecture 
was  so  kindly  received  that  it  gives  me  great  hopes  of 
being  able  to  do  something.  I  do  dread  the  conflict  of  opin- 
ions in  which  I  must  be  more  or  less  involved  ;  but  then  I 
also  feel  that  the  cause,  which  I  earnestly  believe  to  be  that  of 
Christ's  faith,  wants  all  the  support  in  Oxford  which  it  can 
get ;  and  from  my  numerous  pupils  I  have  some  peculiar  ad- 
vantages, which  hardly  any  one  else  could  have. 

CCLXXXIX.      *TO    THE    REV.    R.    THORPE. 

Fox  How,  Christmas  Day,  1841. 

I  thank  you  very  much  for  the  extracts  which  you  have 
sent  me,  and  still  more  for  your  kind  letter.  I  often  think 
that  I  should  be  better  qualified  to  assist  those  who  are  in 
doubt  as  to  these  questions,  if  I  could  understand  what  there 
is  in  the  opposite  opinions  which  recommends  itself  particu- 
larly to  the  mind.  I  can  understand,  for  instance,  the  Cal- 
vinistic  and  Arminian  controversy,  both  sides  appearing  to 
me  to  have  something  in  their  favor  both  in  Scripture  and  in 
Philosophy,  although  I  think  not  equally.  But  here  I  cannot 
perceive  what  is  the  temptation,  i.  e.  what  ground  of  Scripture 
or  of  reason,  what  need  of  the  human  mind,  —  nay,  even 
what  respectable  weakness  there  is,  which  craves  the  support 
of  those  opinions  to  which  I  am  so  opposed.  I  am  well  aware 
that  there  must  be  something  to  fascinate  such  minds  as  I 
have  known  overcome  by  them.  But  I  never  yet  have  been 
able  to  make  out  what  it  is;  and,  being  thus  painfully  out  of 
sympathy  with  the  persons  so  affected,  I  am  unable  to  be  of 
the  service  to  them  which  I  could  wish  to  be.  And  this  may 
account  to  you  at  least  for  anything  which  may  seem  harsh  or 
over-positive  in  my  writing  against  them.  It  is  difficult  to 
speak  hesitatingly  on  points  which  you  feel  to  be  the  most 
clear  and  certain  truths  in  existence  ;  and  it  is  difficult  to 
speak  with  consideration  of  what  appears  to  you  not  error 
merely,  but  error  absolutely  unaccountable,  —  error  so  ex- 
traordinary as  to  appear  equivalent  to  an  absolute  delusion. 
And  therefore  you  will  do  me  a  great  service  if  ever  you 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  265 

can  make  me  understand  what  is  the  attractive  side  of  these 
opinions,  —  attractive,  I  mean,  to  those  who  believe  and  are 
familiar  with  the  Scriptures,  and  therefore  are  persuaded  that 
they  hold  already,  as  far  as  their  own  sin  and  infirmity  will 
allow  them,  all  that  hope  and  strength  and  comfort,  —  and 
these  resting  immediately  on  a  Divine  Author,  —  which 
these  opinions  would  give  us  through  a  human  or  formal 
medium.  Many  years  ago  Keble  told  me  that  the  sin  for- 
bidden to  us  by  the  second  commandment  was,  he  thought, 
the  having  recourse  to  unauthorized  mediators  or  means  of 
approach  to  God.  Now  the  whole  of  these  opinions  seems 
to  me  to  be  susceptible  of  this  definition,  that  they  contain 
a  great  variety  of  ways  of  breaking  the  second  command- 
ment, and  nothing  else. 

CCXC.      TO    MB.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Fox  How,  December  26, 1841. 

I  will  say  nothing  about  the  Oxford  contest,  nor 

about  the  matters  connected  with  it,  only  asking  you  to  con- 
sider your  expression  about  "descending  all  the  way  to  my 
level "  in  religious  opinions.  Is  it  not  rather  assuming  the 
question  to  call  my  views  low,  and  the  opposite  ones  high? 
You  know  that  I  should  urge  the  authority  of  St.  Paul  for 
reversing  the  epithets,  according  to  his  language  in  the  Epistle 
to  the  Galatians.  Neither  are  my  opinions  properly  low  as  to 
Church  authority.  I  am  for  High  Church  but  no  Priest ; 
that  is,  I  no  more  entertain  a  low  sense  of  the  Church,  by 
denying  the  right  and  power  of  the  Priesthood,  than  I  enter- 
tain a  low  sense  of  the  State  or  of  Law,  because  I  deny  the 
authority  of  TvpawtoVs,  or  of  those  oligarchies  which  Aristotle 
calls  Swaoraai.  I  am  not  saying  whether  I  am  right  or 
wrong,  only  contending  that  the  opposite  views  have  no  right 
to  be  called  high  in  comparison  with  mine,  either  religiously 
or  ecclesiastically. 

I  will  remember  what  you  say  about  Vincentius  Lirinensis, 
and  will  see  the  passage  in  Bishop  Jebb ;  but  I  doubt  exces- 
sively his  references  to  all  the  men  to  whom  he  appeals.  Of 
course  everybody  would  allow  that  "  Quod  plerumque,  quod  a 
pluribus"  &c.,  is  an  authority,  and  that  I  have  admitted ;  but 
the  question  is  whether  it  be  a  paramount  authority. 

Wordsworth  is  in  high  force,  and  I  hope  that  we  shall  see 
much  of  him  while  we  are  here.  The  country  is  in  most  per- 

VOL.  n.  23 


266  LIFE  OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

feet  beauty.  I  cannot  tell  you  how  much  I  am  obliged  to  yon 
for  all  the  conclusion  of  your  letter ;  and  I  trust  that  I  shall 
1  enter  into,  and  act  in  the  spirit  of  it.  But  how  startling  is  it 
to  see  how  quietly  opposite  opinions  lie  side  by  side,  so  long 
as  neither  are  entertained  keenly;  but,  when  both  become 
deep  and  real  convictions,  then  toleration  is  no  longer  easy. 
I  dreamt  some  years  ago  of  a  softening  of  the  opposition  be- 
tween Roman  Catholics  and  Protestants,  having  been  beguiled 
by  the  apparent  harmony  subsisting  between  them,  while  the 
principles  of  both  were  slumbering.  But  I  do  not  dream  of 
it  now :  for  the  principles  are  eternally  at  variance,  and  now 
men  are  beginning  to  feel  their  principles,  and  act  on  them. 
I  should  not  now  be  surprised  if  I  live  to  see  a  time  of  perse- 
cution ;  and  the  histories  of  the  old  martyrs  appear  to  me  now 
things  which  we  may  ourselves  be  called  upon  to  realize,  for 
wherever  men  are  not  indifferent,  I  doubt  greatly  whether 
they  are  much  advanced  in  charity. 

CCXCI.       TO    THE    REV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

(With  regard  to  difficulties  in  the  statutes  of  the  Professorship.) 

Fox  How,  December  26,  1841. 

The  matter  lies  in  a  short  compass.     The  present 

regulations  could  not  be  observed  without  injury  to  the  Uni- 
versity, if  I  were  resident  altogether  and  had  nothing  to  do  with 
Rugby.  Twenty  Lectures  a  year,  if  they  are  to  be  such  as  a 
Professor  of  History  in  Oxford  ought  to  give,  cannot  be  pre- 
pared in  a  year.  I  could  give  fifty,  on  the  other  hand,  or  any 
number  which  might  be  required,  if  I  made  my  course  an 
abridgment  of  all  Modern  History, collected  appar- 
ently from  some  popular  book  like  Russell.  My  object  would 
be  to  give  eight  Lectures  every  year,  like  Guizot's  on  French 
History,  for  the  history,  chiefly  the  internal  history  of  England, 
beginning  at  the  fifteenth  century.  It  would  be  a  work  for 
my  life,  and  eight  Lectures  a  year  would  be,  I  am  sure,  as 
much  as  any  man  could  give  with  advantage.  My  present 
course  will  be  introductory,  on  the  method  of  reading  History ; 
and  this,  too,  will  consist  of  eight  Lectures.  Now  I  am  will- 
ing to  go  on  with  the  present  regulations,  if  the  University 
think  it  advisable,  provided  always,  that  I  am  required  to  take 
no  oath  about  them  ;  because  then  as  much  of  the  salary  may 
be  forfeited  now,  as  the  Vice-Chancellor  may  think  proper, 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  267 

and  the  question  of  reducing  the  number  of  Lectures  may  be 
considered  at  leisure,  before  I  come  to  leave  Rugby.  But 
feeling  earnestly  desirous  to  do  the  duty  of  the  Professorship 
efficiently,  and  believing  that  I  can  do  it,  I  think  I  may  ask 
the  sanction  of  the  University  authorities  for  an  application  to 
the  Government  about  the  regulations,  to  have  them  altered 
as  regards  the  number  of  Lectures,  and,  I  think,  also,  to  take 
away  the  oath,  if  such  a  thing  be  not  required  of  other  Pro- 
fessors. In  the  last  century,  there  was  a  sad  recklessness  in 
requiring  oaths  on  all  occasions  worthy  or  unworthy ;  but 

there  is  a  better  feeling  now  prevalent, and  I  should 

hope  to  show  that  without  the  oath  the  duty  might  be  done 
effectually. 

In  the  mean  time  this  uncertainty  is  very  inconvenient,  be- 
cause we  have  actually  engaged  our  house  in  Oxford,  and  I 
shall  have  enough  to  do  to  finish  my  Lectures  in  time  if  they 
are  wanted,  and,  if  they  are  not  wanted,  I  can  ill  afford  the 

time  to  work  upon  them But  this  cannot  be  helped, 

only  the  oath  is  a  serious  matter ;  and  if  I  am  required  to 
take  it  to  the  regulations  attached  to  my  patent,  I  have  no 
alternative  but  to  refuse  it  most  positively.  We  are  all  well 
here,  and  have  the  most  beautiful  weather ;  the  mountain  tops 
all  covered  with  snow,  and  all  their  sides  and  the  valleys  rich 
with  the  golden  ferns  and  the  brown  leaves  of  the  oaks. 

[The  regulations  in  question  were  found  not  to  be  in  force.] 

CCXCII.      TO    MR.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Fox  How,  December  31,  1841. 

[After  explaining  the  difficulties  about  the  Professorship.] 
I  do  not  like  undertaking  more  than  I  can  do,  or  being  thought 
to  do  the  work  of  my  place  inefficiently.  And  I  would  rather 
give  up  the  Professorship  a  hundred  times  than  to  be  thought 
to  make  a  job  of  it.  Yet  I  do  value  it  very  much,  and  look  for- 
ward to  having  great  parties  of  the  young  men  of  the  various 
great  schools  with  no  small  pleasure.  I  shall  ask  our  Rugby 
men  to  bring  their  friends  of  other  schools,  when  they  are 
good  men.  And  I  hope  to  see  some  of  my  boys  and  girls 
well  bogged  in  the  middle  of  Bagley  Wood.  It  is  the  la.su 
night  of  the  year.  May  the  new  year  begin  and  go  on  hap- 
pily with  us  both,  and  I  think  that  at  our  age  we  begin  to  feel 
that  the  word  "  happy "  has  no  light  meaning  and  requires 
mo^e  than  mere  worldly  prosperity  or  enjoyment  to  answer 
to  its  signification.  Our  family  greetings  to  all  yours. 


268  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 


CCXCIII.      TO   THE    SAME. 

Fox  How,  January  9,  1842. 

I  have  nearly  finished  six  Lectures,  although  1 

scarcely  know  whether  I  shall  deliver  them.  If  I  do  go  up 
to  Oxford,  many  things,  I  can  assure  you,  have  been  in  my 
thoughts,  which  I  wished  gradually  to  call  men's  attention  to ; 
one  in  particular,  which  seems  to  me  a  great  scandal,  the  debts 
contracted  by  the  young  men,  and  their  backwardness  in  pay- 
ing them.  I  think  that  no  part  of  this  evil  is  to  be  ascribed 
to  the  tradesmen,  because  so  completely  are  the  tradesmen  at 
the  mercy  of  the  under-graduates,  that  no  man  dares  refuse  to 
give  credit ;  if  he  did,  his  shop  would  be  abandoned.  The 
Colleges  take  care  to  secure  themselves  by  requiring  caution 
money,  and  other  expedients ;  and  I  cannot  but  think  that 
their  authority  might  be  exerted  to  compel  payment  to  trades- 
men with  nearly  the  same  regularity  as  they  exact  their  own 
battells. 

CCXCIV.      TO    THE   REV.   J.   HEARN. 

Fox  How,  January  17, 1842. 

I  do  not  like  to  leave  your  kind  letters  unanswered,  lest  you 
should  think  that  I  am  indifferent  to  receiving  them,  which 
would  be  most  far  from  the  truth ;  and  yet  I  have  been  so 
busy,  and  still  am,  that  it  not  only  makes  it  difficult  to  find 
time  to  write  letters,  but  it  makes  them  not  worth  reading 
when  they  are  written,  because  it  so  engrosses  me  with  one  or 
two  pursuits,  that  it  leaves  me  nothing  to  communicate  which 
can  be  of  interest  to  others.  Next  week,  I  suppose,  our  life 
will  have  variety  and  excitement  enough,  when  we  go  up  to 
Oxford  with  all  our  family,  and  are  established  at  our  house 
in  Beaumont  Street,  which  we  have  taken  for  three  weeks. 
Nevertheless,  I  prefer  writing  from  the  delicious  calm  of  this 
place,  where  the  mountains  raise  their  snowy  tops  into  the 
clear  sky  by  this  dim  twilight,  with  a  most  ghost-like  solemnity ; 
and  nothing  is  heard,  far  or  near,  except  the  sound  of  the 
stream  through  the  valley.  I  have  been  walking  to-day  to 
Windermere,  and  went  out  on  a  little  rude  pier  of  stones  into 
the  lake,  to  watch  what  is  to  me  one  of  the  most  beautiful  ob- 
jects in  nature,  the  life  of  blue  water  amidst  a  dead  landscape 
of  snow  ;  the  sky  was  bright,  and  the  wind  fresh,  and  the 
lake  was  dancing  and  singing,  as  it  were,  while  all  along  iti 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  269 

margin  lay  the  dead  snow,  covering  everything  but  the  lake, 
—  plains  and  valleys  and  mountains.  I  have  admired  the 
same  thing  more  than  once  by  the  sea-side,  and  there  the  tide 
gives  another  feature  in  the  broad  band  of  brown  shingles 
below  high-water  mark,  interposed  between  the  snow  and 
the  water.  We  have  been  here  more  than  three  weeks,  and, 
as  it  always  does,  the  place  has  breathed  a  constant  refresh- 
ment on  me,  although  I  have  never  worked  harder ;  having 
done  six  of  my  Lectures,  besides  a  large  correspondence  about 
the  school  matters,  as  usual  in  the  holidays.  I  have,  in  all, 
written  seven  Lectures,  and  leave  one  more  to  be  written  in 
Oxford,  and  this  last  week  I  hope  to  devote  to  my  History. 

We  have  been  all  well,  and  as  my  children  grow  up, 

we  are  so  large  and  companionable  a  party,  that  we  need  no 
society  out  of  ourselves.  There  is  a  great  change  in  later 
married  life,  when  your  table  is  always  full  without  company, 
and  you  live  in  the  midst  of  a  large  party.  And  I  am  sure 
that  its  effect  is  to  make  you  shrink  from  other  society,  which 
is  not  wanted  to  enliven  you,  and  which,  added  to  a  large 
family  in  the  house,  becomes  almost  fatiguing. 

I  will  say  nothing  of  my  deep  interest  in  this  Oxford  elec- 
tion, and  in  the  progress  of  the  Newmanite  party,  on  which 
so  many  seem  to  look  either  complacently  or  stupidly,  who  yet 
cannot  really  sympathize  with  it.  But  I  shall  see  and  hear 
enough,  and  more  than  enough,  of  all  this  during  my  stay  in 

Oxford I  half  envy  you  your  farming  labors,  and 

wish  you  all  manner  of  success  in  them.  I  could  enter  with 
great  delight  into  planting,  but  I  am  never  here  at  the  right 
season,  and  at  Rugby  I  have  neither  the  time  nor  the  ground. 

CCXCV.       TO    REV.  HERBERT   HILL. 

Oxford,  February  9, 1842. 

If  Mrs.  Nichols*  is  alive  and  sensible,  both  my 

wife  and  I  would  wish  to  give  her  our  affectionate  remem- 
brances. I  can  quite  feel  what  you  say  as  to  the  good  of 
sitting  by,  and  watching  her  patience.  It  is  a  great  lesson  to 

learn  how  to  die Our  stay  here  has  even  surpassed 

my  expectations,  and  the  country  is  more  beautiful  than  my 
recollections,  but  my  keen  enjoyment  of  it  makes  me  satisfied 
that  my  dislike  of  the  Rugby  country  proceeds  from  no  fond 

*  A  poor  woman  near  Fox  How. 
23* 


270  LIFE  OP  DR.  ARNOLD. 

contrast  with  "Westmoreland,  but  from  its  own  unsurpassable 
dulness.  I  was  to-day  in  the  valley  behind  S.  Hincksey,  and 
in  the  thickets  of  Bagley  Wood.  I  went  up  to  town  to  see 
the  King  of  Prussia  at  Bunsen's,  and  there  met  both  Maurice 
and  Carlyle.  We  go  down  on  Friday.  All  join  in  kindest 
regards  to  Mrs.  Hill,  and  in  love  to  the  babies,  begging  Katie's 
pardon  for  the  affront  of  so  calling  her. 

CCXCVI.      TO   AN    OLD    PUPIL.       (K.) 

Oxford,  February  9, 1842. 

I  think  the  question  of  the  expediency  of  your 

residing  for  some  time  at  Oxford  is  rather  difficult.  But  on 
the  whole,  unless  you  have  some  special  object  in  coming  here 
which  I  do  not  know,  I  think  that  I  should  advise  against  it. 
This  place  appears,  at  this  moment,  to  be  overridden  with  one 
only  influence,  which  is  so  predominant  that  one  must  either 
yield  to  it,  or  be  living  in  a  state  of  constant  opposition  to 
those  around  one,  a  position  not  very  agreeable.  Besides,  are 
you  not  already  engaged  more  usefully  both  to  yourself  and 
others,  than  you  could  be  here,  and  reading  what  you  do  read 
in  a  healthier  atmosphere  ?  I  say  this,  but  yet  there  is  not  a 
man  alive  who  loves  this  place  better  than  I  do,  and  I  have 
enjoyed  our  fortnight's  stay  here  even  more  than  I  expected. 
I  have  been  in  no  feuds  or  controversies,  and  have  met  with 
nothing  but  kindness ;  but  then  my  opinions  are  so  well  known, 
that  they  are  allowed  for  as  a  matter  of  course,  so  that  my 
difficulty  here  is  less  than  that  of  most  men.  We  go  down 
to  Rugby  on  Friday,  when  the  school  meets.  It  always  gives 
me  real  pleasure  to  hear  from  you,  nor  would  I  answer  you 
so  briefly  if  I  were  not  overwhelmed  with  work  of  various 
kinds,  which  leaves  not  a  moment  to  spare,  insomuch  that 
Rugby  will  be  almost  a  relaxation. 

CCXCVII.       TO   MR.    JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  March  3, 1842. 

[After  speaking  of  the  statutes  of  the  Professorship.]  What 
the  University  itself  drew  up  so  lately,  and  which  has  never 
been  more  than  an  utter  dead  letter,  may,  I  should  think,  be 
well  altered  by  the  University  now.  But  this  I  should  wish 
to  leave  entirely  to  the  Heads  of  Houses,  never  having  had 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  271 

the  slightest  wish  to  ask  anything  of  the  Government  as  a 
personal  favor  to  myself,  and  still  less  anything  which  the 
University  did  not  think  desirable.  I  shall  write  again  to 
Hawkins  immediately,  and,  if  the  University  wishes  things  to 
remain  in  statu  quo,  even  let  it  be  so.  If  they  do  not  tender 
the  oath,  which  I  do  not  think  they  will,  I  shall  not  think  of 
resigning,  and  they  may  deal  with  the  salary  as  they  think 
proper.  But  after  the  experience  which  I  had  this  term, 
nothing  shall  induce  me  to  resign  so  long  as  I  can  lawfully 
hold  the  place,  and  so  long  as  the  University  itself  does  not 
wish  me  to  give  it  up.  Our  stay  in  Oxford  more  than  realized 
all  my  hopes  in  every  way.  I  do  not  mean  the  attendance  on 
the  Lectures,  gratifying  as  that  was,  but  the  universal  kind- 
ness which  was  shown  to  us  all,  down  to  Fan  and  Walter,  and 
the  hearty  delight  with  which  I  went  over  my  old  walks  with 
the  children,  and  seemed  to  be  commencing  residence  once 
again. 

CCXCVIII.      TO  ARCHDEACON   HAKE. 

Rugby,  March  18, 1842. 

I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  Charge,  and  for  the  kind 
mention  of  my  name,  and  the  sanction  given  to  what  I  have 
said,  which  you  have  added  in  the  notes.  I  think  it  likely 
that  if  I  were  in  your  situation,  or  in  any  similar  office  in  the 
Church,  my  sense  of  the  good  to  be  done,  even  under  the 
present  system,  and  of  the  necessity  of  being  myself  not  idle, 
would  lead  me  to  a  view  perhaps  more  exactly  agreeing  with 
your  own.  As  it  is,  I  feel  so  deeply  the  danger  and  evil  of 
the  false  Church  system,  that  despairing  of  seeing  the  true 
Church  restored,  I  am  disposed  to  cling,  not  from  choice 
but  necessity,  to  the  Protestant  tendency  of  laying  the  whole 
stress  on  Christian  religion,  and  adjourning  the  notion  of 
Church  sine  die.  Thus  I  can  take  no  part  in  aiding  the  new 
Colonial  Bishoprics ;  because  they  seem  to  me  to  be  likely  to 
propagate  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  the  Popery  *  of  Canter- 
bury, the  more  so  as  the  very  appointment  is  not  to  be  vested 
in  the  Crown  but  in  the  Bishops,  which  seems  to  me  a  very 
great  step  taken  in  the  wrong  direction.  But  I  have  no  time 
to  trouble  you  with  my  notions,  and  you  have  better  things  to 
ilo  than  to  read  them. 


*  In  allnsion  to  Lord  Falkland's  speech.     See  5th  Lee.  on  Mod.  Hist.  — • 
The  appointment  here  alluded  to  was  still  vested  nominally  in  the  Crown 


272  LIFE  OF  DK.  ARNOLD. 

ccxcmc.    *TO  THE  REV.  H.  FOX. 

(Now  settled  as  a  Missionary  in  India.) 

Rugby,  April  10,  1842. 

I  thank  you  very  much  for  your  letter,  which  gave  me  a 
very  comfortable  account  of  you  and  yours.  Be  assured  that 
I  shall  be  always  very  thankful  to  you  for  writing;  nor  will 
I  fail  to  answer  your  letters ;  only  you  will  remember  that  I 
write  at  a  disadvantage,  having  nothing  to  communicate  to 
you  from  a  country  which  you  know  as  well  as  I  do,  to  be 
compared  with  the  interest  of  your  communications,  which 
must  be  full  of  new  information  to  one  who  h:i  never  been  in 
India.  I  suppose  *  that  the  late  events  in  Cabul  must  have 
produced  a  strong  sensation  all  over  India.  They  are  deeply 
to  be  regretted,  and  very  painful  to  me  so  far  as  I  know  about 
them,  because  they  seem  to  have  been  brought  on  by  such  sad 
misconduct.  Otherwise,  the  magnitude  of  their  consequence 
seems  to  be  overrated  by  many  people ;  the  Indian  Empire,  I 
believe,  will  stand  no  less  securely,  and  will  have  the  oppor- 
tunity, whether  employed  or  wasted,  of  doing  great  things  for 
the  welfare  of  Asia. 

There  must  be  a  great  interest  in  having  to  deal  with  minds 
whose  training  has  been  so  different  from  our  own,  though  it 
would  be  to  me  a  great  perplexity.  I  should  think  its  ten- 
dency would  be  at  first  to  make  one  sceptical,  and  then,  if  that 
was  overcome,  to  make  one  fanatical.  I  mean  that  it  must  be 
startling  at  first  to  meet  with  many  persons  holding  as  truths, 
things  the  most  opposite  from  what  we  believe,  and  even  so 
differing  from  us  in  their  appreciation  of  evidence.  And  first, 
this  would  incline  one,  I  should  think,  to  mistrust  all  truth,  or 
to  think  that  it  was  subjective  merely,  one  truth  for  Europe, 
and  another  for  India ;  then,  if  this  feeling  were  repelled, 
there  would  be  the  danger  of  maintaining  a  conclusion  which 
yet  one  did  not  feel  one  could  satisfactorily  prove,  —  the  resolv- 
ing that  a  thing  shall  be  believed  by  the  mind,  whether  reason- 
ably or  unreasonably.  I  should  earnestly,  I  think,  look  out 
in  a  Hindoo's  mind  for  those  points  which  he  had  in  common 
with  us,  and  see  if  the  enormous  differences  might  not  be  ex- 

*  "  It  gives  me  a  pain  I  cannot  describe,"  he  said  in  one  of  his  latest  con- 
versations, "  to  hear  of  all  this  misery,  which  1  have  no  power  to  alleviate. 
Yet  it  will  be  as  it  was  with  the  Romans  in  Spain ;  we  hear  often  of  '  csesus 
consul  cum  legionibus,'  but  then  the  next  year  another  oonsul  and  new 
Vegions  go  out,  just  as  before." 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  273 

plained,  and  their  existence  accounted  for.  In  this  way  I 
have  always  believed  in  the  existence  of  a  moral  sense 
amongst  all  men,  in  spite  of  the  tremendous  differences  in 
the  notions  of  different  ages  and  countries  as  to  right  and 
wrong.  I  think  these  differences  may  be  explained,  and  that 
they  do  not  disprove  a  common  idea  of  and  appreciation  of 
virtue,  as  consisting  mainly  in  self-denial  and  love.  But  all 
this  will  have  presented  itself  to  you  often,  and  mine  is  but 
hypothesis,  for  my  sole  acquaintance  has  been  with  European 
minds,  trained  more  or  less  in  the  same  school. 

You  will  be  glad  to  hear  of  the  flourishing  state  of  Rugby. 
Highton  is  permanently  settled  here  as  a  Master.  The  school 
have  subscribed  a  hundred  and  thirty  pounds  for  another 
window  in  the  Chapel,  and  Frank  Penrose  has  looked  at  the 
roof  and  given  us  a  plan  for  getting  rid  of  the  flat  roof,  which 
has  long  been  my  great  enemy.  Of  other  news,  I  know  none 
so  good  as  that  Clough  is  just  elected  at  Oriel,  which  all  his 
friends  are  most  rejoiced  at. 

I  hear  flourishing  accounts  of  New  Zealand,  and 

Bishop  Selwin,  who  is  gone  out  there,  seems  to  be  just  the 
man  for  such  a  place,  —  very  active  and  very  zealous.  I 
suppose  that  you  will  see  Tucker  erelong,  as  I  find  he  is 
returned  to  Madras.  We  are  doing  Elphinstone's  History  of 
India  in  the  Sixth,  for  our  Modern  History  on  Thursdays,  as 
I  wished  to  make  the  fellows  know  something  of  India,  of 
which  they  knew  next  to  nothing.  It  is  a  pity  that  Elphin- 
stone  had  not  a  more  profound  knowledge  of  the  ancient 
western  world,  which  continually  illustrates  and  is  illustrated 
by  the  state  of  things  in  India.  God  bless  you,  my  dear  Fox, 
and  prosper  your  work.  I  must  beg  you  to  offer  my  very 
kind  regards  to  Mrs.  Fox,  and  1  rejoice  to  hear  of  the  birth 
of  your  little  boy. 

CCC.       TO    CHEVALIER    BUNSEN. 

Rugby,  May  3, 1842. 

Since  our  return  from  Oxford,  we  have  been  living 

in  a  quiet,  which  offers  a  curious  contrast  to  your  life  in  Lon- 
don. We  have  seen  fewer  people  than  usual ;  and  as  I  hardly 
ever  read  a  newspaper,  our  thoughts  have  been  very  much 
kept  within  the  range  of  our  little  world  here,  and  of  my  sub- 
jects of  writing.  My  Lectures  will  be  published  in  a  few 
days,  and  you  shall  have  a  copy  immediately :  and  I  hope  to 


274  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

give  another  Lecture  in  Oxford  in  about  a  month,  on  the  Life 
and  Times  of  Gregory  the  First.  Is  there  any  good  German 
work  on  that  special  subject  ?  I  am  continually  wanting  to 
apply  for  information  to  you,  but  I  know  that  you  have  no 
time  to  answer  me.  One  thing  I  will  ask,  —  whether  there  is 
any  good  information  to  be  had  about  the  Iberian  inscriptions 
and  coins  still  to  be  found  in  various  collections  ?  I  have 
been  reading  or  referring  to  various  Spanish  books, — Masdeu, 
for  instance,  and  Velasquez,  —  but  they  seem  to  me  worth 
little.  By  the  way,  in  looking  into  Larramendi's  Basque 
Grammar,  I  was  delighted  to  find  the  long-lost  plural  of 
"  Ego,"  and  singular  of  "  Nos."  It  was  evident  that  Ego 
and  Nos  had  made  a  sort  of  match  of  convenience,  each  hav- 
ing lost  its  original  partner  ;  but  behold,  in  Basque  "  gu  "  is 
"  nos,"  and  "  ni "  or  "  neu  "  is  "  ego."  One  cannot  doubt,  I 
think,  that  "  ego "  and  "  nos "  have  here  found  their  lost 
other  half.  I  hope  to  finish  vol.  iii.  of  Rome,  before  the  end 
of  the  holidays  ;  and  then,  in  the  last  month  of  them,  my  wife 
and  I  are  going,  I  believe,  to  have  a  run  abroad.  I  do  not 
know  where  we  shall  go  exactly,  but  I  think  very  likely  to 
Grenoble  and  the  Val  d'Isere,  and  thence  to  Marseilles,  or 
the  eastern  Pyrenees.  If  I  can  get  to  Carthagena  it  would 
be  a  great  satisfaction  to  me ;  for  Polybius's  account  is  so  at 
variance  with  Captain  Smyth's  survey  of  the  present  town  and 
port  that  it  is  utterly  perplexing.  This  is  better  than  nothing 
in  the  way  of  a  letter,  but  I  know  that  it  is  not  much ;  how- 
ever, if  it  draws  even  a  shorter  answer  from  you,  I  shall  be 
thankful. 

CCCI.      TO    THE    REV.    DR.    HAWKINS. 

Rugby,  May  19, 1842. 

I  beg  your  pardon  for  not  having  thanked  you  for  your 
Sermon,  which  I  had  not  only  received,  but  read,  and  read 
with  very  great  pleasure.  I  am  delighted  to  find  that  on  the 
Priest  question,  which  I  think  is  the  fundamental  one  of  the 
whole  matter,  we  are  quite  agreed.  And  I  am  also  not  a 
little  pleased  that  the  Archbishop  should  have  wished  a 
sermon  to  be  printed,  containing,  as  I  think,  so  much  truth, 
and  truth  at  this  time  so  much  needed.  I  will  fix,  as  there 
seems  no  objection,  Thursday,  June  2,  at  one  P.  M.,  for  my 
Lecture ;  and  it  may  be  called,  if  you  please,  "  On  the  Life 
and  Times  of  Pope  Gregory  the  First,  or  the  Great."  The 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  275 

materials  are  very  good  and  plentiful,  if  I  had  but  more  time 
to  work  at  them.  Thank  you  for  accepting  my  dedication. 

Carlyle  dined,  and  slept  here  on  Friday  last,  and  on 

Saturday  we  went  over  with  my  wife  and  two  of  my  boys  to 
Naseby  field,  and  explored  the  scene  of  the  great  battle  very 
satisfactorily. 

CCCII.      TO    MK.   JUSTICE    COLERIDGE. 

Rugby,  May  22,  1842. 

I  was  not  ignorant  of  what  was  going  on  about  the 

Colonial  Bishoprics ;  but  you  can  well  understand  that  all 
this  movement  wears  to  me  rather  a  doubtful  aspect.  While 
I  can  fully  enter  into  the  benefits  of  giving  a  centre  of  govern- 
ment where  there  was  none,  and  of  having  a  clergyman  of 
superior  rank,  and  probably  superior  acquirements,  made  an 
essential  part  in  the  society  of  a  rising  colony,  yet,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  cannot  but  know  that  the  principal  advocates  of 
the  plan  support  it  on  far  other  principles  ;  —  that  it  is  with 
them  an  enforcing  their  dogma  of  the  necessity  of  Succession- 
Episcopacy  to  a  true  Church ;  that  accordingly  the  paper, 
which  you  sent  me,  speaks  of  the  "  Church "  in  America  (U. 
S.)  and  of  the  various  "sects"  there,  —  language  quite  con- 
sistent in  the  mouths  of  High  Churchmen,  but  which  assumes 
as  a  truth,  what  I  hold  to  be  the  very  Xa/x7rporaToi>  rJ/^iiSoy  of  a 
false  system.  I  feel,  therefore,  half  attracted  and  half  re- 
pelled, doubting  whether  the  practical  administrative  and 
social  advantages  to  be  gained  are  likely  to  outweigh  the  en- 
couragement given  to  what  I  believe  to  be  very  mischievous 
error ;  and  while  "  dubitatio  ista  non  tollitur,"  I  cannot  feel 
disposed  to  come  to  the  practical  conclusion  of  a  subscription. 
Believe  me,  it  is  no  pleasure  to  me  to  be  obliged  to  stand  aloof 
from  a  movement  which  has  so  much  of  good  in  it,  and  might 
be  so  purely  and  gloriously  good,  were  it  not . 

The  time  which  he  had  originally  fixed  for  his 
retirement  from  Rugby  was  now  drawing  near,  and 
the  new  sphere  opened  to  him  in  his  Profesorship  at 
Oxford,  seemed  to  give  a  fixedness  to  his  future  pros- 
pects which  would  naturally  increase  his  long-cherished 
wishes  of  greater  leisure  and  repose.  But  he  still  felt 
himself  in  the  vigor  of  life,  and  used  to  rejoice  in  the 


276  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

thought  that  the  forty-ninth  year,  fixed  by  Aristotle  as 
the  acme  of  the  human  faculties,  lay  still  some  years 
before  him.  The  education  of  his  two  younger  sons 
was  a  strong  personal  inducement  to  him  to  remain  a 
short  time  longer  in  his  situation.  His  professorial 
labors  were  of  course  but  an  appendage  to  his  duties 
in  the  school,  and  when  some  of  the  unforeseen  details 
of  the  entrance  on  his  new  office  had  seemed  likely  to 
deprive  him  of  the  place  which  he  had  so  delighted  to 
receive,  —  "in  good  and  sober  truth,"  he  writes  to 
Archbishop  Whately,  "  I  believe  that  this  and  all  other 
things  are  ordered  far  more  wisely  than  I  could  order 
them,  and  it  will  seem  a  manifest  call  to  turn  my 
mind  more  closely  to  the  great  work  which  is  before 
me  here  at  Rugby."  The  unusual  amount  also  of 
sickness  and  death  which  had  marked  the  beginning  of 
the  school  year,  naturally  gave  an  increased  earnest- 
ness to  his  dealings  with  the  boys.  His  latest  scholars 
were  struck  by  the  great  freedom  and  openness  with 
which  he  spoke  to  them  on  more  serious  subjects,  — 
the  more  directly  practical  applications  which  he  made 
of  their  scriptural  lessons,  —  the  emphasis  with  which 
he  called  their  attention  to  the  contrast  between  Chris- 
tian faith  and  love,  and  that  creed  of  later  Paganism, 
which  made  "  the  feelings  of  man  towards  the  Deity 
to  be  exactly  those  with  which  we  gaze  at  a  beautiful 
sunset."  *  The  same  cause  would  occasion  those  fre- 
quent thoughts  of  death  which  appear  in  his  Chapel 
Sermons,  and  in  his  more  private  life  during  this  last 
year.  There  had  never,  indeed,  been  a  time  from  his 
earliest  manhood  in  which  the  uncertainty  of  human 
life  had  not  been  one  of  the  fixed  images  of  his  mind  ; 
and  many  instances  would  recur  to  all  who  knew  him, 
of  the  way  in  which  it  was  constantly  blended  with  all 
his  thoughts  of  the  future.  "  Shall  I  tell  you,  my  lit- 
tle boy."  he  once  said  to  one  of  his  younger  children 
whose  joyful  glee  at  the  approaching  holidays  he  had 

*  MS.  Notes  of  his  lessons  on  Cic.  Div.  ii.  72. 


LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  277 

gently  checked  ;  "  shall  I  tell  you  why  I  call  it  sad  ?  " 
r-  and  he  then  repeated  to  him  the  simple  story  of  his 
own  early  childhood  ;  how  his  own  father  had  made 
him  read  to  him  a  sermon  on  the  text,  "  Boast  not 
thyself  of  to-morrow,"  on  the  very  Sunday  evening 
before  his  sudden  death :  "  Now  cannot  you  see, 
when  you  talk  with  such  certainty  about  this  day  week 
and  what  we  shall  do,  why  it  seems  sad  to  me  ?  "  — 
But  it  was  natural  that  such  expressions  should  have 
been  more  often  remarked  by  those  who  heard  them 
during  this  year,  even  had  they  not  been  in  themselves 
more  frequent.  "  It  is  one  of  the  most  solemn  things 
I  do,"  he  said  to  one  of  his  children,  who  asked  him 
why,  in  the  title-page  of  his  MS.  volume  of  Sermons, 
he  always  wrote  the  date  only  of  its  commencement, 
and  left  a  blank  for  that  of  its  completion,  —  "  to  write 
the  beginning  of  that  sentence,  and  think  that  I  may 
perhaps  not  live  to  finish  it."  And  his  pupils  recol- 
lected the  manner  in  which  he  had  announced  to  them, 
before  morning  prayers,  the  unexpected  death  of 
one  of  their  number :  "  We  ought  all  to  take  to 
ourselves  these  repeated  warnings ;  God,  in  His  mercy, 
sends  them  to  us.  I  say  in  His  mercy,  because  they 
are  warnings  to  all  of  us  here,  —  we  ought  all  to  feel 
them  as  such,"  —  adding  emphatically, — "and  I  am 
sure  I  feel  it  so  myself." 

Whatever  might  be  the  general  interest  of  this  clos- 
ing period  was  deepened  during  the  last  month  by 
accidental  causes,  into  which  it  is  not  necessary  to 
enter,  but  which  became  the  means  of  drawing  forth 
all  the  natural  tenderness  of  his  character  more  fully 
than  any  previous  passage  of  his  life.  There  was 
something  in  the  added  gentleness  and  kindness  of  his 
whole  manner  and  conversation,  —  watching  himself, 
and  recalling  his  words,  if  he  thought  they  would  be 
understood  unkindly,  — which,  even  in  his  more  gen- 
eral intercourse,  would  make  almost  every  one  who 
saw  him  at  that  time  connect  their  last  recollections  of 
him  with  some  trait  of  thoughtfulness  for  others,  and 

TOL.   II.  24 


278  LIFE  OF  DK  ARNOLD. 

forgetfulness  of  himself;  and  which,  to  those  nenrost 
and  dearest  to  him,  seemed  to  awaken  a  consciousness, 
amounting  almost  to  awe,  of  a  visible  growth  in  those 
qualities  which  are  most  naturally  connected  with  the 
thought  of  another  world. 

There  was  something  also  in  the  expressions  of  his 
own  more  personal  feelings,  —  few  and  short  as  they 
ever  were,  but  for  that  reason  the  more  impressive 
when  they  did  escape  him,  which  stamped  them  with  a 
more  than  usual  solemnity.  Such  were  some  of  the 
passages  in  a  private  diary,  which  he  now  commenced 
for  the  first  time,  but  not  known  till  after  his  death  by 
any,  except  her  who  alone  shared  his  inmost  thoughts, 
and  who  could  not  but  treasure  up  in  her  memory 
every  word  connected  with  the  beginning  of  this  cus- 
tom. It  was  about  three  weeks  before  his  end,  whilst 
confined  to  his  room  for  a  few  days  by  an  attack  of 
feverish  illness,  to  which,  especially  when  in  anxiety, 
he  had  always  from  time  to  time  been  liable,  that  he 
called  her  to  his  .bedside,  and  expressed  to  her  how, 
within  the  last  few  days,  he  seemed  to  have  "  felt  quite 
a  rush  of  love  in  his  heart  towards  God  and  Christ ; " 
and  how  he  hoped  that  "  all  this  might  make  him  more 
gentle  and  tender,"  and  that  he  might  not  soon  lose 
the  impression  thus  made  upon  him  ;  adding,  that,  as 
a  help  to  keeping  it  alive,  he  hi  tended  to  write  some- 
thing in  the  evenings  before  he  retired  to  rest. 

From  this  Diary,  written  the  last  thing  at  night,  not 
daily,  but  from  time  to  time  in  each  week,  it  has  been 
thought  right  to  give  the  following  extracts :  — 

May  22. —  I  am  now  within  a  few  weeks  of  completing 
my  forty-seventh  year.  Am  I  not  old  enough  to  view  life  as 
it  is,  and  to  contemplate  steadily  its  end,  —  what  it  is  coming 
to,  and  must  come  to,  —  what  all  things  are  without  God  ?  I 
know  that  my  senses  are  on  the  very  eve  of  becoming  weaker, 
and  that  my  faculties  will  then  soon  begin  to  decline  too, — 
whether  rapidly  or  not  I  know  not  —  but  they  will  decline. 
Is  there  not  one  faculty  which  never  declines,  which  is  the 
seed  and  the  seal  of  immortality ;  and  what  has  become  of 


LIFE  OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  279 

that  faculty  in  me  ?  What  is  it  to  live  unto  God  ?  May 
God  open  my  eyes  to  see  Him  by  faith,  in  and  through  His 
Son  Je.-us  Christ ;  may  He  draw  me  to  Him,  and  keep  me 
with  Him,  making  His  will  my  will,  His  love  my  love,  His 
strength  my  strength,  and  may  he  make  me  feel  that  pre- 
tended strength,  not  derived  from  Him,  is  no  strength,  but 
the  worst  weakness.  May  his  strength  be  perfected  in  my 
weakness. 

Tuesday  evening,  May  24.  —  Two  days  have  passed  and  I 
am  mercifully  restored  to  my  health  and  strength.  To-morrow 
I  hope  to  be  able  to  resume  my  usual  duties.  Now  then  is 

the  dangerous   moment 0  gracious  Father,  keep  me 

now  through  thy  Holy  Spirit ;  keep  my  heart  soft  and  tender 
now  in  health  and  amidst  the  bustle  of  the  world ;  keep  the 
thought  of  Thyself  present  to  me  as  my  Father  in  Jesus 
Christ :  and  keep  alive  in  me  a  spirit  of  love  and  meekness 
to  all  men,  that  I  may  be  at  once  gentle  and  active  and  firm. 

0  strengthen  me  to  bear  pain,  or  sickness,  or  danger,  or  what- 
ever Thou  shalt  be  pleased  to  lay  upon  me,  as  Christ's  soldier 
and  servant;    and  let  my  faith  overcome  the  world   daily. 
Strengthen  my  faith,  that  I  may  realize  to  my  mind  the  things 
eternal  —  death,  and  things  after  death,  and  Thyself.    O  save 
me  from  my  sins,  from  myself,  and  from  my  spiritual  enemy, 
and  keep  me  ever  thine  through  Jesus   Christ.     Lord,  hear 
my  prayers  also  for  my  dearest  wife,  my  dear  children,  my 
many  and  kind  friends,  my  household,  —  for  all  those  com- 
mitted to  my  care,  and  for  us  to  whom  they  are  committed. 

1  pray  also  for  our  country,  and  for  Thy  Holy  Church  in  all 
the  world.     Perfect  and  bless  the  work  of  Thy  Spirit  in  the 
hearts  of  all  Thy  people,  and  may  Thy  kingdom  come,  and 
Thy  will  be  done  in  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.     I  pray  for  this, 
and  for  all  that  Thou  seest  me  to  need  for  Jesus  Christ's 
sake. 

Wednesday,  May  25.  —  Again,  before  I  go  to  rest  would  I 
commit  myself  to  God's  care,  through  Christ,  beseeching  Him 
to  forgive  me  for  all  my  sins  of  this  day  past,  and  to  keep 
alive  His  grace  in  my  heart,  and  to  cleanse  me  from  all  indo- 
lence, pride,  harshness,  and  selfishness,  and  to  give  me  the 
spirit  of  meekness,  humility,  firmness,  and  love.  0  Lord, 
keep  Thyself  present  to  me  ever,  and  perfect  Thy  strength  in 
my  weakness.  Take  me  and  mine  under  Thy  blessed  care, 
this  night  and  evermore,  through  Jesus  Christ. 

Thursday,  May  26 O  Lord,  keep  Thyself  present 


280  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

to  me  always,  and  teach  me  to  come  to  Thee  by  the  One  and 
Living  Way,  Thy  Son  Jesus  Christ.  Keep  me  humble  and 
gentle.  2.  Self-denying.  3.  Firm  and  patient.  4.  Active. 
5.  Wise  to  know  Thy  will,  and  to  discern  the  truth.  6.  Lov- 
ing, that  I  may  learn  to  resemble  Thee  and  my  Saviour.  0 
Lord,  forgive  me  for  all  my  sins,  and  save  me  and  guide  me 
and  strengthen  me  through  Jesus  Christ. 

May  29 O  Lord,  save  me  from  idle  words,  and 

grant  that  my  heart  may  be  truly  cleansed  and  filled  with 
Thy  Holy  Spirit,  and  that  I  may  arise  to  serve  Thee,  and  lie 
down  to  sleep  in  entire  confidence  in  Thee,  and  submission  to 
Thy  will,  ready  for  life  or  for  death.  Let  me  live  for  the  day, 
not  overcharged  with  worldly  cares,  but  feeling  that  my 
treasure  is  not  here,  and  desiring  truly  to  be  joined  to  Thee 
in  Thy  heavenly  kingdom,  and  to  those  who  are  already  gone 
to  Thee.  O  Lord,  let  me  wait  on  patiently ;  but  do  Thou 
save  me  from  sin,  and  guide  me  with  Thy  Spirit,  and  keep 
me  with  Thee,  and  in  faithful  obedience  to  Thee,  through 
Jesus  Christ  Thy  Son  our  Lord. 

May  31.  —  Another  day  and  another  month  succeed.  May 
God  keep  my  mind  and  heart  fixed  on  Him,  and  cleanse  me 
from  all  sin.  I  would  wish  to  keep  a  watch  over  my  tongue, 
as  to  vehement  speaking  and  censuring  of  others.  I  would 
desire  to  be  more  thoughtful  of  others,  more  thoughtful 
"  ultro  "  of  my  own  head,  without  the  suggestions  of  others. 
I  would  desire  to  remember  my  latter  end  to  which  I  am  ap- 
proaching, going  down  the  hill  of  life,  and  having  done  far 
more  than  half  my  work.  May  God  keep  me  in  the  hour  of 
death,  through  Jesus  Christ ;  and  preserve  me  from  over  fear*, 
as  well  as  from  presumption.  Now,  O  Lord,  whilst  I  am  in 
health,  keep  my  heart  fixed  on  Thee  by  faith,  and  then  I  shall 
not  lose  Thee  in  sickness  or  in  death.  Guide  and  strengthen 
and  enkindle  me,  and  bless  those  dearest  to  me,  and  those 
committed  to  my  charge,  and  keep  them  Thine,  and  guide 
and  support  them  in  Thy  holy  ways.  Keep  sin  far  from  them, 
O  Lord,  and  let  it  not  come  upon  them  through  any  neglect 
of  mine.  O  Lord,  inspire  me  with  zeal,  and  guide  me  with 
wisdom,  that  Thy  name  may  be  known  to  those  committed  to 
my  care,  and  that  they  may  be  made  and  kept  always  Thine. 
Grant  this,  O  Lord,  through  Jesus  Christ  my  Saviour,  and 
may  my  whole  trust  towards  thee  be  through  His  merits  and 
intercessions. 

Thursday  evening,  June  2.  —  Again  the  day  is  over  and  1 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  281 

am  going  to  rest.  O  Lord,  preserve  me  this  night,  and 
strengthen  me  to  bear  whatever  Thou  shalt  see  fit  to  lay  on 
me,  whether  pain,  sickness,  danger  or  distress. 

Sunday,  June  5.  —  I  have  been  just  looking  over  a  news- 
paper, one  of  the  most  painful  and  solemn  studies  in  the 
world,  if  it  be  read  thoughtfully.  So  much  of  sin  and  so 
much  of  suffering  in  the  world,  as  are  there  displayed,  and 
no  one  seems  able  to  remedy  either.  And  then  the  thought 
of  my  own  private  life,  so  full  of  comforts,  is  very  startling ; 
when  I  contrast  it  with  the  lot  of  millions,  whose  portion  is 
so  full  of  distress  or  of  trouble.  May  I  be  kept  humble  and 
zealous,  and  may  God  give  me  grace  to  labor  in  my  gen- 
eration for  the  good  of  my  brethren,  and  for  His  glory  !  May 
He  keep  me  His  by  night  and  by  day,  and  strengthen  me  to 
bear  and  to  do  His  will,  through  Jesus  Christ. 

Monday  evening,  June  6.  —  I  have  felt  better  and  stronger 
all  this  day,  and  I  thank  God  for  it.  But  may  He  keep  my 
heart  tender.  May  He  keep  me  gentle  and  patient,  yet  active 
and  zealous,  may  He  bless  me  in  Himself  and  in  His  Son. 
May  He  make  me  humble-minded  in  this,  that  I  do  not  look 
for  good  things  as  my  portion  here,  but  rather  should  look  for 
troubles  as  what  I  deserve,  and  as  what  Christ's  people  are 
to  bear.  "  If  ye  be  without  chastisement,  of  which  all  are 
partakers,"  &c.  How  much  of  good  have  I  received  at  God's 
hand,  and  shall  I  not  also  receive  evil?  Only,  O  Lord, 
strengthen  me  to  bear  it,  whether  it  visit  me  in  body,  in  mind, 
or  in  estate.  Strengthen  me  with  the  grace  which  Thou  didst 
vouchsafe  to  Thy  martyrs  ;  and  let  me  not  fall  from  Thee  in 
any  trial.  O  Lord,  let  me  cherish  a  sober  mind,  to  be  ready 
to  bear  evenly,  and  not  sullenly.  O  Lord,  reveal  to  me  Thy- 
self in  Christ  Jesus,  which  knowledge  will  make  all  suffering 
and  all  trials  easy.  O  Lord,  bless  my  dearest  wife,  and 
strengthen  us  in  the  hardest  of  all  trials,  evil  befalling  each 
other.  Bless  our  dear  children,  and  give  me  grace  to  guide 
them  wisely  and  lovingly,  through  Jesus  Christ.  3  Lord, 
may  I  join  with  all  Thy  people  in  heaven  and  on  earth  in  of- 
fering up  my  prayers  to  Thee  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ; 
and  in  saying,  "  Glory  be  to  Thy  most  holy  Name  for  ever 
and  ever." 

Meanwhile  his  general  occupations  during  this  last 
year  had  been  going  on  as  usual,  though  interrupted  for 
a  time  by  his  Professorial  Lectures  at  Oxford.  On  re- 

24* 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

turning  from  them  to  Rugby,  in  February,  he  immedi- 
ately engaged  again  upon  the  Roman  History.  "  I 
thirst,"  he  said,  "  for  Zama,"  and  on  the  5th  of  May 
he  had  begun  the  chapter  immediately  preceding  the 
account  of  that  battle,  which,  with  two  more,  would 
have  completed  the  third  volume.  His  Lecture  on 
Gregory  the  Great  had  also  been  occupying  his  time 
and  thoughts  ;  and  he  had  for  this  purpose  been  an- 
alyzing and  commenting  on  the  earlier  books  of  Paulus 
Diaconus,  De  Gestis  Longobardorum.  He  was  also 
beginning  to  make  final  arrangements  for  the  edition 
of  St.  Paul's  Epistles,  which  he  had  now  for  some 
years  past  been  hoping  to  leave  as  a  monument  of  his 
government  of  Rugby  School.  And  it  was  about  six 
weeks  before  his  death  that  he  explored  the  field  of 
Naseby  in  company  with  Mr.  Carlyle,  who  left  his 
house  at  Rugby,  expressing  the  hope  that  it  might 
"long  continue  to  be  what  was  to  him  one  of  the 
rarest  sights  in  the  world  —  a  temple  of  industrious 
peace." 

His  short  illness  presented  no  material  interruption 
to  his  present  pursuits  or  future  plans.  He  looked 
eagerly  forward  to  his  holidays  at  Fox  How,  often 
writing  to  those  of  his  children  who  had  gone  there 
before  the  usual  time  of  their  common  journey,  to 
inquire  after  the  growth  of  his  favorite  trees,  and  the 
aspect  of  his  favorite  views  ;  and  he  was  also  prepar- 
ing for  his  meditated  excursion  to  Carthagena,  with 
a  view  to  his  history  of  the  Punic  wars.  His  more 
laborious  and  extended  designs  for  his  later  years  were 
still  floating  before  him.  "  One  inducement  I  should 
have  if  they  would  send  me  as  Bishop  to  any  of  the 
Australian  Colonies,"  were  his  last  words  to  one  of 
hi  most  attached  pupils,  while  the  attack  of  illness 
was  still  upon  him,  "  that  there  should  be  at  least  one 
Bishop  in  those  parts,  who  would  endeavor  to  build  up 
a  Church  according  to  my  idea  of  what  a  true  Church 
should  be."  His  terminal  Lecture  at  Oxford  had  been 
duly  notified  for  the  2d  of  June,  and  was  not  aban- 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 


doned  till  lie  found  that  it  would  be  physically  impos- 
sible, in  consequence  of  the  unexpected  interruption 
of  his  indisposition,  to  finish  it  hi  time.  "  I  am 
obliged,"  he  wrote  to  Dr.  Hawkins,  on  the  27th  of 
May,  "  to  give  up  altogether  the  hope  of  coming  to 
Oxford  this  term.  I  grieve  for  this  very  much,  but,  if 
I  live  and  am  well,  I  hope  to  give  two  Lectures  next 
term  to  make  up  for  it,  for  nothing  would  grieve  me 
more  than  to  be  thought  to  escape  from  the  duties  of 
my  office,  so  far  as  it  is  in  my  power  to  fulfil  them." 

The  last  week  of  the  long  summer  half-year  had 
now  arrived  —  his  fourteenth  year  at  Rugby  was 
drawing  to  its  close  —  the  course  of  sermons,  in  which, 
during  the  preceding  month,  he  had  dwelt  on  the 
three  things  necessary  to  be  borne  in  mind  by  his 
scholars  wherever  they  might  be  scattered  in  after  life, 
had  now  been  ended.  On  the  5th  of  June  the  last  and 
farewell  sermon  was  preached  in  the  Chapel,  before 
the  final  dispersion  of  the  boys  for  the  holidays,  in 
which  he  surveyed,  from  his  own  long  experience,  the 
peculiar  difficulties  and  temptations  of  the  place,  and 
in  which  he  concluded  his  parting  advice  with  words 
to  which,  in  the  minds  of  his  hearers,  the  sequel  gave 
a  new  import,  even  in  their  minutest  particulars. 
"  The  real  point  which  concerns  us  all,  is  not  whether 
our  sin  be  of  one  kind  or  of  another,  more  or  less 
venial,  or  more  or  less  mischievous  in  man's  judgment, 
and  to  our  worldly  interests  ;  but  whether  we  struggle 
against  all  sin  because  it  is  sin ;  whether  we  have  or 
have  not  placed  ourselves  consciously  under  the  ban, 
ner  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  trusting  in  Him,  cleav- 
ing to  Him,  feeding  on  Him  by  faith  daily,  and  so 
resolved,  and  continually  renewing  our  resolution,  to 
be  His  faithful  soldiers  and  servants  to  our  lives'  end. 
To  this,"  he  said,  "  I  would  call  you  all,  so  long  as  I 
am  permitted  to  speak  to  you  —  to  this  I  do  call  you 
all,  and  especially  all  who  are  likely  to  meet  here 
again  after  a  short  interval,  that  you  may  return 
Christ's  servants  with  a  believing  and  loving  heart ; 


284  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

and,  if  this  be  so,  I  care  little  as  to  what  particular 
form  temptations  from  without  may  take  ;  there  will 
be  a  security  within  —  a  security  not  of  man,  but  of 
God." 

The  succeeding  week  was  as  usual  one  of  much 
labor  and  confusion  from  the  accumulation  of  work  at 
the  end  of  the  half-year.  There  was  the  heavy  pressure 
of  the  Fifth  Form  Examination,  and  the  general  wind- 
ing up  of  the  school  business  ;  —  there  was  the  public- 
day  of  the  school-speeches,  on  Friday  the  10th,  — the 
presence  of  the  yearly  examiners  from  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  —  the  visits  of  his  former  pupils  on  their 
way  from  the  Universities  at  the  beginning  of  the  long 
vacation.  It  might  seem  needless  to  dwell  on  details 
which,  though  of  deep  interest  to  those  who  knew  him 
well,  differed  but  little  from  the  tenor  of  his  usual  life. 
Yet  for  this  very  reason  it  is  worth  while  to  recall  so 
much  of  them  as  shall  continue  the  same  image  down 
to  its  sudden  close. 

Whatever  depression  had  been  left  by  the  feverish 
attack  of  the  preceding  fortnight,  had  in  the  two  or 
three  last  days  passed  away,  and  he  had  recovered  not 
only  his  usual  health,  but  his  usual  spirits  and  energy, 
playing  with  his  children,  undertaking  all  the  work  of 
the  Examination,  and  at  the  same  time  interrupting 
himself  in  his  various  occupations,  to  go  and  sit  for  an 
hour  to  relieve  the  anxiety  or  enliven  the  sick  bed  of 
an  invalid  ;  and  though  "  glad  to  get  off  going  up  to 
Oxford  to  do  battle,"  and  wishing  to  avoid  the  excite- 
ment and  inconvenience  of  a  hurried  journey,  he 
offered,  if  it  were  necessary,  to  give  his  vote  in  con- 
vocation, on  June  9th,  for  the  repeal  of  the  censure  on 
Dr.  Hampden. 

Deeply,  too,  did  he  enter  into  the  unusual  beauty  of 
the  summer  of  that  genial  year.  In  his  daily  walk  to 
his  bathing-place  in  the  Avon,  he  was  constantly  call- 
ing the  attention  of  his  companions  to  the  peculiar 
charm  of  this  season  of  the  year,  when  everything  was 
BO  rich  without  being  parched  ;  the  deep  green  of  a 


LIFE   OF   DR.    ARNOLD.  285 

field  of  clover,  or  of  an  old  elm  on  the  rise  of  a  hill  on 
the  outskirts  of  Rugby,  or  of  a  fine  oak,  which  called 
forth  many  old  recollections  of  its  associates  in  the  ad- 
joining hedges,  of  which  it  was  one  of  the  few  sur- 
vivors. And  these  walks  were  enlivened  by  those  con- 
versations in  which  his  former  pupils  took  so  much 
delight,  in  which  he  was  led  on  through  the  various 
topics  of  which  his  mind  was  full.  There  were  the 
remembrances  of  his  past  tours,  and  "  of  the  morning 
between  Pisa  and  Rome,  which  gave  him  the  most 
perfect  outward  enjoyment  which  he  could  conceive  ; " 
the  expectation  of  future  journeys  —  of  the  delight  of 
visiting  the  Sierra  Morena,  "  containing  all  the  various 
stages  of  vegetation,  and  beautiful  as  the  garden  of  the 
Lord,"  —  and  yet  again  the  constant  feeling  that  "  he 
never  could  rest  anywhere  in  travelling,"  —  "if  he 
stayed  more  than  a  day  at  the  most  beautiful  spot  in 
the  world,  it  would  only  bring  on  a  longing  for  Fox 
How."  There  was  also  the  anticipation  of  the  more 
distant  future  ;  how  he  would  have  pupils  with  him  in 
Westmoreland  during  the  long  vacation,  when  he  had 
retired  from  Rugby,  and  "  what  glorious  walks  he 
would  take  them  upon  Loughrigg." 

His  subjects  of  more  general  interest  were  also  dis- 
cussed as  usual,  —  such  as  the  comparison  of  the  art 
of  medicine  in  barbarous  and  civilized  ages,  —  the 
philological  importance  of  provincial  vocabularies, — 
the  threatening  prospect  of  the  moral  condition  of  the 
United  States,  —  united  on  the  other  hand  with  their 
great  opportunities  for  good  in  "  that  vast  continent." 
Of  the  Oxford  opinions  his  language  was  strong  as 
usual,  but  with  none  of  that  occasional  vehemence  of 
expression,  which  had  of  late  years  somewhat  inter- 
fered with  the  freedom  of  his  intercourse  with  some 
of  his  Oxford  pupils,  who  thought  more  favorably  than 
himself  of  the  school  in  question.  He  objected,  as  he 
often  did,  to  the  use  of  ridicule  in  religious  arguments, 
as  incompatible  with  the  painful  feeling  which  should 
be  aroused  by  the  sight  of  serious  errors  or  faults ;  and 


286  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

spoke  of  the  irreconcilable  difference  of  principle  by 
which  he  believed  Roman  Catholics  and  Protestants 
were  divided,  and  "  between  which,"  he  said,  "  the 
nineteenth  pentury  will  have  to  make  her  choice,"  - 
dwelling  at  the  same  time  on  the  inconsistency  of  any 
attempt  to  hold  the  Apostolical  Succession  short  of 
Romanism ;  though  with  expressions  of  great  affection 
of  some  of  his  friends,  and  with  great  respect  of  Mr. 
Maurice,  who  seemed  to  him  to  do  this.  "  But  such 
views,"  he  said,  "  were  my  earliest  dislike,  —  the 
words  mean  so  entirely  nothing,  their  system  goes  on 
two  legs  and  a  half,  —  the  Oxford  system  on  three  and 
three  quarters,  —  the  Roman  Catholic  on  four." 

On  Saturday  morning  he  was  busily  employed  in  ex- 
amining some  of  the  boys  in  Ranke's  History  of  the 
Popes,  in  preparation  for  which  he  had  sat  up  late  on 
the  previous  night,  and  some  of  the  answers  which  had 
much  pleased  him  he  recounted  with  great  interest  at 
breakfast.  The  chief  part  of  the  day  he  was  engaged 
in  finishing  the  business  of  the  school,  not  accepting 
proffered  assistance  even  in  the  mechanical  details,  but 
going  through  the  whole  work  himself.  He  went  his 
usual  round  of  the  school  to  distribute  the  prizes  to 
the  boys  before  their  final  dispersion  and  to  take  leave 
of  those  who  were  not  returning  after  the  holidays. 
"  One  more  lesson,"  he  had  said,  to  his  own  Form  on 
the  previous  evening,  "  I  shall  have  with  you  on  Sun- 
day afternoon,  and  then  I  will  say  to  you  what  I  have 
to  say."  That  parting  address  to  which  they  were 
always  accustomed  to  look  forward  with  such  pleasure, 
never  came.  But  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at,  if  they 
remarked  with  peculiar  interest,  that  the  last  subject 
which  he  had  set  them  for  an  exercise  was  "  Domus 
Ultima;"  that  the  last  translation  for.  Latin  verses 
was  from  the  touching  lines  on  the  death  of  Sir  Philip 
Sidney,  in  Spenser's  "  Ruins  of  Time  ; "  —  that  the 
last  words  with  which  he  closed  his  last  lecture  on  the 
New  Testament  were  in  commenting  on  the  passage  of 
St.  John :  "It  doth  not  appear  what  we  shall  be ; 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  28T 

but  we  know  that  when  he  shall  appear  we  shall  be 
like  Him,  for  we  shall  see  Hun  as  He  is."  — "  So., 
too,"  he  said,  "  in  the  Corinthians,  '  For  now  we  see 
through  a  glass  darkly,  but  then  face  to  face.'  —  Yes," 
he  added,  with  marked  fervency,  "  the  mere  contem- 
plation of  Christ  shall  transform  us  into  His  likeness." 

In  the  afternoon  he  took  his  ordinary  walk  and 
bathe,  enjoying  the  rare  beauty  of  the  day,  and  he 
stopped  again  and  again  to  look  up  into  the  unclouded 
blue  of  the  summer  sky,  "  the  blue  depth  of  ether  " 
which  had  been  at  ah1  times  one  of  his  most  favorite 
images  in  nature,  "  conveying,"  as  he  said,  "  ideas  so 
much  more  beautiful,  as  well  as  more  true,  than  the 
ancient  conceptions  of  the  heavens  as  an  iron  firma- 
ment." At  dinner  he  was  in  high  spirits,  talking  with 
his  several  guests  on  subjects  of  social  or  historical 
interest,  and  recurring  with  great  pleasure  to  his  early 
geological  studies,  and  describing  with  much  interest, 
his  recent  visit  to  Naseby  with  Carlyle,  "  its  position 
on  some  of  the  highest  table-land  in  England,  —  the 
streams  falling  on  the  one  side  into  the  Atlantic,  on 
the  other  into  the  German  Ocean,  —  far  away,  too,  from 
any  town,  —  Market  Harborough  the  nearest,  into 
which  the  Cavaliers  were  chased,  late  in  the  long  sum- 
mer evening,  on  the  14th  of  June,  you  know." 

In  the  evening  he  took  a  short  stroll,  as  usual,  on 
the  lawn  in  the  farther  garden,  with  the  friend  and 
former  pupil,  from  whom  the  account  of  these  last  few 
days  has  been  chiefly  derived.  His  conversation  with 
him  turned  on  some  points  in  the  school  of  Oxford 
Theology,  in  regard  to  which  he  thought  him  to  be  in 
error ;  particularly  he  dwelt  seriously,  but  kindly,  on 
what  he  conceived  to  be  false  notions  of  the  Eucharist, 
insisting,  especially,  that  our  Lord  forbids  us  to  sup- 
pose that  the  highest  spiritual  blessings  can  be  con- 
ferred only  or  chiefly  through  the  reception  of  material 
elements,  —  urging  with  great  earnestness,  when  it  was 
said  that  there  might  be  various  modes  of  spiritual 
agency,  "  My  dear  Lake,  God  be  praised,  we  are  told 


288  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

the  great  mode  by  which  we  are  affected  —  we  have 
His  own  blessed  assurance,  '  The  words  which  I  speak 
unto  you,  they  are  spirit,  and  they  are  life.' ' 

At  nine  o'clock  was  a  supper,  -which,  on  the  last 
evening  of  the  summer  half-year,  he  gave  to  the  Sixth 
Form  boys  of  his  own  house ;  and  they  were  struck 
with  the  cheerfulness  and  liveliness  of  his  manner, 
talking  of  the  end  of  the  half-year,  and  the  pleasure  of 
his  returning  to  Fox  How  in  the  next  week,  and  ob- 
serving, in  allusion  to  the  departure  of  so  many  of  the 
boys,  "  How  strange  the  Chapel  will  look  to-morrow." 

The  school  business  was  now  completely  over.  The 
old  school-house  servant,  who  had  been  about  the  place 
many  years,  came  to  receive  the  final  accounts,  and 
delighted  afterwards  to  tell  how  his  master  had  kept 
him  a  quarter  of  an  hour  talking  to  him  with  more 
than  usual  kindness  and  confidence. 

One  more  act,  the  last  before  he  retired  that  night, 
remains  to  be  recorded,  —  the  last  entry  in  his  Diary, 
which  was  not  known  or  seen  till  the  next  morning, 
when  it  was  discovered  by  those  to  whom  every  word 
bore  a  weight  and  meaning,  which  he  who  wrote  it  had 
but  little  anticipated. 

"  Saturday  evening,  June  llth.  —  The  day  after  to-morrow 
is  my  birthday,  if  I  am  permitted  to  live  to  see  it  —  my  forty- 
seventh  birthday  since  my  birth.  How  large  a  portion  of  iny 
life  on  earth  is  already  passed.  And  then  —  what  is  to  follow 
this  life?  How  visibly  my  outward  work  seems  contracting 
and  softening  away  into  the  gentler  employments  of  old  age. 
In  one  sense,  how  nearly  can  I  now  say  '  Vixi.'  And  I  thank 
God  that,  as  far  as  ambition  is  concerned,  it  is,  I  trust,  fully 
mortified ;  I  have  no  desire  other  than  to  step  back  from  my 
present  place  in  the  world,  and  not  to  rise  to  a  higher.  Still 
there  are  works  which,  with  God's  permission,  I  would  do  be- 
fore the  night  cometh  ;  especially  that  great  work,*  if  I  might 
be  permitted  to  take  part  in  it.  But  above  all,  let  me  mind 
my  own  personal  work,  —  to  keep  myself  pure  and  zealous 

•*  To  prevent  any  po«sibility  of  misconceptiou,  it  may  be  as  wall  to  refer 
»  chapter  iv.  vol.  L  p.  131. 


LIFE   OF   DR.   ARNOLD.  289 

and  believing,  —  laboring  to  do  God's  will,  yet  not  anxious 
that  it  should  be  done  by  me  rather  than  by  others,  if  God 
disapproves  of  my  doing  it." 

It  was  between  five  and  six  o'clock  on  Sunday  morn- 
ing that  he  awoke  with  a  sharp  pain  across  his  chest, 
which  he  mentioned  to  his  wife,  on  her  asking  whether 
he  felt  well,  —  adding  that  he  had  felt  it  slightly  on  the 
preceding  day,  before  and  after  bathing.  He  then 
again  composed  himself  to  sleep ;  but  her  watchful 
care,  always  anxious,  even  to  nervousness,  at  the  least 
indication  of  illness,  was  at  once  awakened,  and  on 
finding  from  him  that  the  pain  increased,  and  that  it 
seemed  to  pass  from  his  chest  to  his  left  arm,  her  alarm 
was  so  much  roused  from  a  remembrance  of  having 
heard  of  this  in  connection  with  Angina  Pectoris,  and 
its  fatal  consequences,  that  in  spite  of  his  remon- 
strances, she  rose  and  called  up  an  old  servant,  whom 
they  usually  consulted  in  cases  of  illness,  from  her 
having  so  long  attended  the  sick  bed  of  his  sister  Su- 
sannah. Reassured  by  her  confidence  that  there  was 
no  ground  for  fear,  but  still  anxious,  Mrs.  Arnold  re- 
turned to  his  room.  She  observed  him  as  she  was 
dressing  herself,  lying  still,  but  with  his  hands  clasped, 
his  lips  moving,  and  his  eyes  raised  upwards,  as  if  en- 
gaged in  prayer,  when  all  at  once  he  repeated,  firmly 
and  earnestly,  "  And  Jesus  said  unto  him,  Thomas, 
because  thou  hast  seen  thou  hast  believed  ;  blessed  are 
they  who  have  not  seen,  and  yet  have  believed  ;  "  and 
soon  afterwards,  with  a  solemnity  of  manner  and  depth 
of  utterance  which  spoke  more  than  the  words  them- 
selves, "  But  if  ye  be  without  chastisement,  whereof 
all  are  partakers,  then  are  ye  bastards  and  not  sons." 

From  time  to  time  he  seemed  to  be  in  severe  suffer- 
ing ;  and,  on  the  entrance  of  the  old  servant  before 
mentioned,  said,  "Ah!  Elizabeth,  if  I  had  been  as 
much  accustomed  to  pain  as  dear  Susannah  was,  I 
should  bear  it  better."  To  his  wife,  however,  he  ut- 
tered no  expressions  of  acute  pain,  dwelling  only  on 

VOL    II.  25  8 


290  LIFE  OF   DR.  ARNOLD. 

the  moments  of  comparative  ease,  and  observing  that 
he  did  not  know  what  it  was.  But  the  more  than  usual 
earnestness  which  marked  his  tone  and  manner,  es- 
pecially in  repeating  the  verses  from  Scripture,  had 
again  aroused  her  worst  fears ;  and  she  ordered  mes- 
sengers to  be  sent  for  medical  assistance,  which  he  at 
first  requested  her  not  to  do,  from  not  liking  to  disturb 
at  that  early  hour  the  usual  medical  attendant,  who 
had  been  suffering  from  indisposition.  She  then  took 
up  the  Prayer  Book,  and  was  looking  for  a  Psalm  to 
read  to  him,  when  he  said  quickly,  "  The  fifty-first," — 
which  she  accordingly  read  by  his  bedside,  reminding 
him,  at  the  seventh  verse,  that  it  was  the  favorite  verse 
of  one  of  the  old  almswomen,  whom  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  visiting ;  and  at  the  twelfth  verse,  "  0  give 
me  the  comfort  of  Thy  help  again,  and  establish  me 
with  Thy  free  spirit ;  "  —  he  repeated  it  after  her  very 
earnestly.  She  then  read  the  prayer  in  the  "  Visita- 
tion of  the  Sick,"  beginning,  "  The  Almighty  Lord, 
who  is  a  most  strong  tower,"  &c.,  kneeling  herself  at 
the  foot  of  the  bed,  and  altering  it  into  a  common 
prayer  for  them  both. 

As  the  clock  struck  a  quarter  to  seven,  Dr.  Bucknill 
(the  son  of  the  usual  medical  attendant)  entered  the 
room.  He  was  then  lying  on  his  back,  —  his  counte- 
nance much  as  usual,  —  his  pulse,  though  regular,  was 
very  quick,  and  there  was  cold  perspiration  on  the 
brow  and  cheeks.  But  his  tone  was  cheerful.  —  "  How 
is  your  father  ?  "  he  asked,  on  the  physician's  entrance : 
"  I  am  sorry  to  disturb  you  so  early  —  I  knew  that 
your  father  was  unwell,  and  that  you  had  enough  to 
do."  He  described  the  pain,  speaking  of  it  as  having 
been,  very  severe,  and  then  said,  "  What  is  it  ?  "  Whilst 
the  physician  was  pausing  for  a  moment  before  he  re- 
plied, the  pain  returned,  and  remedies  were  applied 
till  it  passed  away ;  and  Mrs.  Arnold  seeing  by  the 
measures  used  that  the  medical  man  was  himself 
alarmed,  left  the  room  for  a  few  moments  to  call  up 
her  second  son,  the  eldest  of  the  family  then  at  Rugby, 


LIFE  OF    DR.  ARNOLD.  291 

and  impart  her  anxiety  to  him ;  and  during  her  ab- 
sence her  husband  again  asked  what  it  was,  and  was 
answered  that  it  was  spasm  of  the  heart.  He  ex- 
claimed, in  his  peculiar  manner  of  recognition,  "  Ha !  " 
and  then  on  being  asked  if  he  had  ever  in  his  life 
fainted,  —  "  No,  never."  If  he  had  ever  had  difficulty 
of  breathing?  —  "No,  never."  If  he  had  ever  had 
sharp  pain  in  the  chest?  —  "No,  never."  If  any  of 
his  family  had  ever  had  disease  of  the  chest  ?  —  "  Yes, 
my  father  had  —  he  died  of  it."  What  age  was  he  ? 

—  "Fifty-three."      Was  it   suddenly  fatal?  — "Yes, 
suddenly  fatal."      He  then  asked  "  If  disease  of  the 
heart  was  a  common  disease  ?  "  —  "  Not  very  com- 
mon."    "  Where  do  we  find  it  most  ?  "  —  "  In  large 
towns,  I  think."     "  Why  ?  "     (Two  or  three  causes 
were  mentioned.)     "  Is  it  generally  fatal  ?  "  —  "  Yes, 
I  am  afraid  it  is." 

The  physician  then  quitted  the  house  for  medicine, 
leaving  Mrs.  Arnold  now  fully  aware  from  him  of  her 
husband's  state.  At  this  moment  she  was  joined  by 
her  son,  who  entered  the  room  with  no  serious  appre- 
hension, and,  on  his  coming  up  to  the  bed,  his  father, 
with  his  usual  gladness  of  expression  towards  him, 
asked,  "  How  is  your  deafness,  my  boy  ?  "  (he  had 
been  suffering  from  it  the  night  before,)  —  and  then, 
playfully  alluding  to  an  old  accusation  against  him, 
' "  you  must  not  stay  here  ;  you  know  you  do  not  like  a 
sick-room."  He  then  sat  down  with  his  mother  at  the 
foot  of  the  bed,  and  presently  his  father  said  in  a  low 
voice :  "  My  son,  thank  God  for  me  ;  "  and  as  his  son 
did  not  at  ouoe  catch  his  meaning,  he  went  on  saying, 

—  "  Thank  God,  Tom,  for  giving  me  this  pain  ;  I  have 
suffered  so  little  pain  in  my  life,  that  I  feel  it  is  very 
good  for  me :  now  God  has  given  it  to  me,  and  I  do  so 
thank  Him  for  it."     And  again,  after  a  pause  he  said, 

—  alluding^  to  a  wish  which  his  son  had  often  heard 
him  express,  that  if  he  ever  had  to  suffer  pain,  his  fac- 
ulties might  be  unaffected  by  it.  —  "  How  thankful  I 
am  that  my  head  is  untouched."     Meanwnile  ILLS  wile, 


292  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

who  still  had  sounding  in  her  ears  the  tone  in  which 
he  had  repeated  the  passage  from  the  Epistle  to  the  He- 
brews, again  turned  to  the  Prayer  Book,  and  began  to 
read  the  Exhortation,  in  which  it  occurs  in  the  "  Vis- 
itation of  the  Sick."  He  listened  with  deep  attention, 
saying  emphatically,  —  "  Yes,"  at  the  end  of  many  of 
the  sentences.  "  There  should  be  no  greater  comfort 
to  Christian  persons  than  to  be  made  like  unto  Christ." 

—  "  Yes."     "  By  suffering  patiently  troubles,  adversi- 
ties, and  sickness." —  "Yes."     "He  entered  not  into 
His  glory  before  He  was  crucified."  —  "  Yes."    At  the 
words  "  everlasting  life,"  she  stopped,  and  his  son  said, 

—  "I  wish,  dear  Papa,  we  had  you  at  Fox  How."    He 
made  no  answer,  but  the  last  conscious  look,  which 
remained  fixed  in  his  wife's  memory,  was  the  look  of 
intense  tenderness  and  love  with  which  he  smiled  upon 
them  both  at  that  moment. 

The  physician  now  returned  with  the  medicines,  and 
the  former  remedies  were  applied  :  there  was  a  slight 
return  of  the  spasms,  after  which  he  said,  —  "If  the 
pain  is  again  as  severe  as  it  was  before  you  came,  I  do 
not  know  how  I  can  bear  it."  He  then,  with  his  eyes 
fixed  upon  the  physician,  who  rather  felt  than  saw  them 
upon  him,  so  as  to  make  it  impossible  not  to  answer 
the  exact  truth,  repeated  one  or  two  of  his  former 
questions  about  the  cause  of  the  disease,  and  ended  by 
asking,  "  Is  it  likely  to  return  ?  "  and,  on  being  told 
that  it  was,  "  Is  it  generally  suddenly  fatal  ?  "  —  "  Gen- 
erally." On  being  asked  whether  he  had  any  pain,  he 
replied  that  he  had  none,  but  from  the  application  of 
the  external  remedies ;  and  then,  a  few  moments  after- 
wards, inquired  what  medicine  was  to  be  given ;  and 
on  being  told,  answered,  "  Ah,  very  well."  The  phy- 
sician, who  was  dropping  the  laudanum  into  a  glass, 
turned  round,  and  saw  him  looking  quite  calm,  but 
with  his  eyes  shut.  In  another  minute  he  heard  a 
rattle  in  the  throat,  and  a  convulsive  struggle,  —  flew 
to  the  bed,  caught  his  head  upon  his  shoulder,  and 
called  to  one  of  the  servants  to  fetch  Mrs.  Arnold. 


LIFE   OF  DE.  ARNOLD.  293 

:3he  had  but  just  left  the  room  before  his  last  conver- 
sation with  the  physician,  in  order  to  acquaint  her  son 
with  his  father's  danger,  of  which  he  was  still  uncon- 
scious, when  she  heard  herself  called  from  above.  She 
rushed  up  stairs,  told  her  son  to  bring  the  rest  of  the 
children,  and  with  her  own  hands  applied  the  remedies 
that  were  brought,  in  the  hope  of  reviving  animation, 
though  herself  feeling,  from  the  moment  that  she  saw 
him,  that  he  had  already  passed  away.  He  was  indeed 
no  longer  conscious.  The  sobs  and  cries  of  his  chil- 
dren as  they  entered  and  saw  their  father's  state,  made 
no  impression  upon  him  —  the  eyes  were  fixed  —  the 
countenance  was  unmoved  :  there  was  a  heaving  of  the 
chest  —  deep  gasps  escaped  at  prolonged  intervals,  — 
and  just  as  the  usual  medical  attendant  arrived,  and 
as  the  old  school-house  servant,  in  an  agony  of  grief, 
rushed  with  the  others  into  the  room,  in  the  hope  of 
seeing  his  master  once  more,  he  breathed  his  last. 

It  must  have  been  shortly  before  eight  A.  M.  that  he 
expired,  though  it  was  naturally  impossible  for  those 
who  were  present  to  adjust  their  recollections  of  what 
passed  with  precise  exactness  of  time  or  place.  So  short 
and  sudden  had  been  the  seizure,  that  hardly  any  one 
out  of  the  household  itself  had  heard  of  his  illness  be- 
fore its  fatal  close.  His  guest,  and  former  pupil,  (who 
had  slept  in  a  remote  part  of  the  house,)  was  coming 
•down  to  breakfast  as  usual,  thinking  of  questions  to 
which  the  conversation  of  the  preceding  night  had 
given  rise,  and  which,  by  the  great  kindness  of  his 
manner,  he  felt  doubly  encouraged  to  ask  him,  when 
he  was  met  on  the  staircase  by  the  announcement  of 
his  death.  The  masters  knew  nothing  till  the  moment, 
when,  almost  at  the  same  time  at  the  different  boarding- 
houses,  the  fatal  message  was  delivered  in  all  its  starts 
ling  abruptness,  "  that  Dr.  Arnold  was  dead."  What 
that  Sunday  was  in  Rugby,  it  is  hard  fully  to  repre- 
sent :  the  incredulity  —  the  bewilderment  —  the  agi- 
tated inquiries  for  every  detail  —  the  blank,  more 
awful  than  sorrow,  that  prevailed  through  the  vacant 

25* 


294  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

services  of  that  long  and  dreary  day  —  the  feeling  as  if 
the  very  place  had  passed  away  with  him  who  had  so 
emphatically  been  in  every  sense  its  head  —  the  sym- 
pathy which  hardly  dared  to  contemplate,  and  which 
yet  could  not  but  fix  the  thoughts  and  looks  of  all  on 
the  desolate  house,  where  the  fatherless  family  were 
gathered  round  the  chamber  of  death. 

Five  of  his  children  were  awaiting  their  father's 
arrival  at  Fox  How.  To  them  the  news  was  brought 
on  Monday  morning,  by  the  same  pupil  who  had  been 
in  the  house  at  his  death,  and  who  long  would  remem- 
ber the  hour  when  he  reached  the  place,  just  as  the 
early  summer  dawn  —  the  dawn  of  that  forty-seventh 
birthday  —  was  breaking  over  that  beautiful  valley, 
every  shrub  and  every  flower  in  all  its  freshness  and 
luxuriance  speaking  of  him  who  had  so  tenderly  fos- 
tered their  growth  around  the  destined  home  of  his  old 
age.  On  the  evening  of  that  day,  which  they  had  been 
fondly  preparing  to  celebrate  with  its  usual  pleasures, 
they  arrived  at  Rugby  in  time  to  see  their  father's  face 
in  death. 

He  was  buried  on  the  following  Friday,  the  very  day 
week,  since,  from  the  same  house,  two  and  two  in  like 
manner,  so  many  of  those  who  now  joined  in  the 
funeral  procession  to  the  Chapel,  had  followed  him  in 
full  health  and  vigor  to  the  public  speeches  in  the 
school.  It  was  attended  by  his  whole  family,  by  those 
of  his  friends  and  former  pupils  who  had  assembled 
from  various  parts  during  the  week,  and  by  many  of 
the  neighboring  clergy  and  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
town,  both  rich  and  poor.  The  ceremony  was  per- 
formed by  Mr.  Moultrie,  Rector  of  Rugby,  from  that 
place  which,  for  fourteen  years,  had  been  occupied 
only  by  him  who  was  gone,  and  to  whom  every  part  of 
that  Chapel  owed  its  peculiar  interest ;  and  his  re- 
mains were  deposited  in  the  Chancel  immediately 
under  the  Communion-table. 

Once  more  his  family  met  in  the  Chapel  on  the  fol- 
lowing Sunday,  and  partook  of  the  Holy  Communion 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD.  295 

at  his  grave,  and  heard  read  the  sermon  preached  by 
him  in  the  preceding  year,  on  "  Faith  Triumphant  in 
Death."  And  yet  one  more  service  in  connection  with 
him  took  place  in  the  Chapel,  when,  on  the  first  Sun- 
day of  the  next  half-year,  the  school,  which  had  dis- 
persed on  the  eve  of  his  death,  assembled  again  within 
its  walls  under  his  successor,  and  witnessed  in  the 
funeral  sendees,  with  which  that  day  was  observed, 
the  last  public  tribute  of  sorrow  to  their  departed 
master. 

Nowhere  could  the  shock  have  been  so  overwhelming 
as  in  the  immediate  circle  of  his  friends  and  pupils. 
But  the  sensation  occasioned  by  his  death  was  far 
wider  than  the  limits  of  his  personal  acquaintance.  In 
London,  and  still  more  in  Oxford,  where  his  name  had 
always  excited  so  much  interest,  —  where  the  last  im- 
pression of  him  had  been  one  of  such  life  and  energy, 
and  of  such  promise  for  the  future,  —  the  tidings  were 
received,  by  men  of  the  various  parties,  with  the  shock 
which  accompanies  the  announcement  of  a  loss  be- 
lieved to  be  at  once  general  and  irreparable.  Few 
men,  it  was  felt,  after  having  been  centres  of  love  and 
interest  to  a  circle  in  itself  so  large,  have  been  known 
and  honored  in  a  circle  yet  larger,  and  removed  from 
both  by  an  end  so  sudden  and  solemn.  Some  notion 
of  the  general  sympathy  may  be  formed  by  the  notices 
-of  his  death  in  most  of  the  periodicals  of  the  years 
1842,  43,  44,  amongst  which  may  be  especially  men- 
tioned the  organs  of  the  two  most  opposite  parties,  the 
extreme  Radical  and  the  extreme  Oxford  School,  with 
both  of  which  in  life  he  had  had  so  little  of  friendly 
intercourse.  As  a  testimony  of  gratitude  to  his  ser- 
vices in  the  cause  of  education,  a  public  subscription 
was  set  on  foot,  under  the  superintendence  of  a  Com- 
mittee, consisting  of  noblemen  and  gentlemen  of  dif- 
ferent political  and  ecclesiastical  parties,  the  proceeds 
of  which  were  applied,  after  the  erection  of  a  monu- 
ment in  Rugby  Chapel,  to  the  foundation  of  scholar- 
ships, to  be  enjoyed  in  the  first  instance  by  his  sons  in 


296  LIFE   OF  DB.  ARNOLD. 

succession,  and  afterwards  dedicated  to  the  promotion 
of  general  study  at  Rugby,  and  of  the  pursuit  of  his- 
tory at  Oxford. 

But  however  wide  was  the  sense  of  his  loss,  and  the 
tribute  of  respect  to  his  memory,  it  was  only  in  the 
narrower  range  of  those  who  knew  him,  especially  of 
those  who  had  been  brought  up  under  his  charge,  that 
the  solemnity  of  the  event  could  be  fully  appreciated. 
Many  were  the  testimonies  borne  by  them  to  the  great- 
ness of  their  loss,  which  it  is  impossible  here  to  record. 
But  it  may  be  permitted  to  close  this  narrative  with  a 
letter  to  his  widow  from  a  former  pupil,  whose  name 
has  already  occurred  in  these  pages,  which  it  has  been 
thought  allowable  to  publish,  (though  of  course  only 
the  utterance  of  the  first  feelings  of  private  sorrow,) 
as  giving  the  impression  left  upon  one  who  had  been 
parted  from  him  for  three  years  in  a  distant  country, 
and  to  whom  his  fellow-scholars  will,  it  is  felt,  willingly 
leave  the  expression  of  thoughts  and  hopes  in  which  so 
many  will  be  able  more  or  less  to  share. 

Hobart  Town,  Van  Diemen's  Land,  Nov.  16, 1842. 
MT   DEAR   MRS.    ARNOLD, 

If  you  knew  the  true  affection  I  had  for  him  whom 
we  have  lost,  you  would  not  forbid  my  writing  of  my 
grief  to  one  most  near  and  dear  to  him  when  here  be- 
low. No  one  inspirited  and  encouraged  my  undertak- 
ing here  as  he  did ;  no  letters  were  so  sure  to  bring 
fresh  hopes  and  happiness  as  those  which  can  never 
come  again  from  him.  It  was  not  so  much  what  he 
said  in  them,  as  the  sense  which  they  conveyed,  that 
he  still  was,  as  he  had  ever  been,  the  same  earnest, 
faithful  friend.  It  was  this  which  made  one  feel  that, 
while  he  was  alive,  it  would  indeed  be  pusillanimous 
to  shrink  from  maintaining  what  was  true  and  right. 
This  I  felt  the  last  tune  I  ever  saw  him,  in  the  autumn 
of  1839.  He  rose  early  and  spent  the  last  hour  with 
me,  before  we  separated  forever ;  he  to  his  school 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD.  297 

tvork  and  I  to  my  journey  here.  We  were  in  the 
dining-room',  and  I  well  remember  the  autumnal  dawn 
—  it  was  calm  and  overcast,  and  so  impressed  itself  on 
my  memory,  because  it  agreed  with  the  more  than 
usual  quietness ;  the  few  words  of  counsel  which  still 
serve  me  from  time  to  time ;  the  manner  in  which  the 
commonest  kindnesses  were  offered  to  one  soon  to  be 
out  of  their  reach  forever ;  the  promise  of  support 
through  evil  fortune  or  good,  in  few  words,  once  re- 
peated, exceeding  my  largest  deserts ;  and  then  the 
earnest  blessing  and  farewell  from  lips  never  again  to 
open  in  my  hearing.  His  countenance  and  manner 
and  dress  —  his  hand,  and  every  movement  are  all 
before  me  now  more  clearly  than  any  picture  —  and 
you  will  understand  full  well  how  a  quiet  scene  like 
this  has  an  impressiveness  unrivalled  by  the  greatest 
excitements.  The  uncertain  consciousness  that  this 
parting  might  be  the  last  hung  about  it  at  the  time  ; 
and  preserved  the  recollection  of  it,  till  now  that  the 
sad  certainty  gives  a  new  importance  to  the  slightest 
particular. 

I  feel  how  unequal  I  am  to  offer  you  any  consola- 
tion that  you  do  not  already  possess,  in  the  far  more 
solemn  and  painful  parting  to  which  you  have  been 
called.  But  how  unhappy  would  it  have  been,  had 
you  foreseen  that  each  day  was  drawing  nearer  and 
nearer  to  that  fatal  event,  as  surely  as  you  now  know 
that  every  passing  hour  is  an  hour  nearer  to  a  happy 
reunion.  Fear  not  but  that  he  will  be  himself  again  — 
some  good  men  fall  asleep  in  Jesus  so  full  of  infirm- 
ities, that  they  cannot  but  be  greatly  changed  both  in 
body  and  mind  by  the  healing  miracle  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion. But  will  not  those  who  die,  as  Moses  and  Elias 
did,  in  the  fulness  of  their  labors  and  their  strength, 
be  as  quickly  recognized  as  were  Moses  and  Elias  by 
the  faithful  in  God's  holy  mount  ?  As  our  Saviour's 
wounds  were  healed  on  the  morning  of  the  Resurrec- 
tion, so  shall  his  mortal  disease  be  healed,  and  all  that 
we  most  loved  in  him  shall  become  immortal.  The 


298  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

tone  of  earnestness  shall  be  there,  deepened  perhaps 
into  a  more  perfect  beauty  by  a  closer  intercourse  with 
the  Son  of  Man,  when  his  ears  have  heard  the  "  Ver- 
ily, verily,  I  say  unto  you,"  that  once  used  to  be  heard 
upon  the  earth  —  the  cheerfulness  shall  be  there  with- 
out a  cloud  to  dim  it  throughout  all  eternity, — and  how 
will  the  most  aspiring  visions  of  reformation  that  ever 
filled  his  mind  on  earth  be  more  than  accomplished  in 
that  day  of  the  restitution  of  all  things  !  How  will  he 
rejoice  in  his  strength  and  immortality,  as  he  busies 
himself  to  perform  the  whole  counsel  of  God,  no  longer 
doubted  or  disputed  by  men !  What  member  of  the 
Divine  Body  will  glory  more  than  he  will  in  the  cath- 
olic and  perfect  union  of  men  with  each  other  and  with 
God? 

My  dear  Mrs.  Arnold,  you  have  been  heretofore  a 
kind  friend  to  one  who  is  neither  forgetful  nor  un- 
grateful. But,  when  thus  gazing  up  into  heaven  after 
him,  I  remember  that  you  are  his,  I  pray  with  a  double 
earnestness  that  you  may  follow  him,  and  that  when 
your  time  is  come,  you  may  present  to  him  the  great- 
est blessing  that  can  now  be  added  to  his  full  cup  of 
joy,  yourself  and  your  children  perfect  before  the 
throne  of  God.  Accept  this  blessing  from  your  true 
and  «ip*?ere  friend, 

JOHN  PHILIP   GELL. 


APPENDIX. 


(A.) 
PRAYERS, 


WRITTEN   BY  DR.    ARNOLD   FOR  VARIOUS   OCCASIONS  IN 
RUGBY   SCHOOL. 


I.      PRATER     READ     EVERT   MORNING    IN    THE     SIXTH    FORM. 
(See  chap.  iii.  vol.  i.  p.  107.) 

0  LORD,  who,  by  Thy  holy  Apostle,  has  taught  us  to  do 
all  things  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus  and  to  Thy  glory, 
give  Thy  blessing,  we  pray  Thee,  to  this  our  daily  work,  that 
we  may  do  it  in  faith,  and  heartily,  as  to  the  Lord  and  not 
unto  men.  All  our  powers  of  body  and  mind  are  Thine,  and 
we  would  fain  devote  them  to  Thy  service.  Sanctify  them 
and  the  work  in  which  they  are  engaged  ;  let  us  not  be  sloth- 
ful, but  fervent  in  spirit,  and  do  Thou,  O  Lord,  so  bless  our 
efforts  that  they  may  bring  forth  in  us  the  fruits  of  true 
wisdom.  Strengthen  the  faculties  of  our  minds  and  dispose 
us  to  exert  them,  but  let  us  always  remember  to  exert  them 
for  Thy  glory,  and  for  the  furtherance  of  Thy  kingdom,  and 
save  us  from  all  pride,  and  vanity,  and  reliance  upon  our  own 
power  or  wisdom.  Teach  us  to  seek  after  truth  and  enable  us 
to  gain  it ;  but  grant  that  we  may  ever  speak  the  truth  in 
love: — that,  while  we  know  earthly  things,  we  may  know 
Thee,  and  be  known  by  Thee,  through  and  in  Thy  Son  Jesus 
Christ.  Give  us  this  day  Thy  Holy  Spirit,  that  we  may  be 
Thine  in  body  and  spirit  in  all  our  work  and  all  our  refresh- 
ments, through  Jesus  Christ  Thy  Son,  our  Lord.  Amen. 


300  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

II.  PRAYER   USED    ON    PUNDAY   EVENING   IN   THE     SCHOOL- 

HOUSE. 

O  Lord  our  God,  we  are  once  again  arrived  at  the  evening 
of  Thy  holy  day.  May  Thy  Spirit  render  it  truly  blest  to 
us! 

We  have  attended  the  public  service  of  Thy  Church ;  Thou 
knowest,  O  Lord,  and  our  own  consciences  each  know  also, 
whether  while  we  worshipped  Thee  in  form,  we  worshipped 
Thee  in  spirit  and  in  truth.  Thou  knowest,  and  our  own 
consciences  know  also,  whether  we  are  or  are  likely  to  be  any 
the  better  for  what  we  have  heard  with  our  outward  ears  this 
day. 

Forgive  us,  Lord,  for  this  great  sin  of  despising  the  means 
of  grace  which  Thou  hast  given  us.  Forgive  us  for  all  our 
carelessness,  inattention,  and  hardness  of  heart :  forgive  us  for 
having  been  far  from  Thee  in  mind,  when  our  lips  and  out- 
ward expression  seemed  near  to  Thee. 

Lord,  will  it  be  so  forever  ?  Shall  we  ever  hear  and  not 
heed  ?  And  when  our  life  is  drawing  near  to  its  end,  as  this 
day  is  now,  shall  we  then  feel  that  we  have  lived  without 
Thee  in  the  world,  and  that  we  are  dying  unforgiven  ?  Gra- 
cious Father,  be  pleased  to  touch  our  hearts  in  time  with 
trouble,  with  sorrow,  with  sickness,  with  disappointment,  with 
anything  that  may  hinder  them  from  being  hard  to  the  end, 
and  leading  us  to  eternal  ruin. 

Thou  knowest  our  particular  temptations  here.  Help  us 
with  Thy  Holy  Spirit  to  struggle  against  them.  Save  us  from 
being  ashamed  of  Thee  and  of  our  duty.  Save  us  from  the 
base  and  degrading  fear  of  one  another.  Save  us  from  idle- 
ness and  thoughtlessness.  Save  us  from  the  sin  of  falsehood 
and  lying.  Save  us  from  unkindness  and  selfishness,  caring 
only  for  ourselves  and  not  for  Thee,  and  for  our  neighbors. 

Thou  who  knowest  all  our  weaknesses,  save  us  from  our- 
selves, and  our  own  evil  hearts.  Renew  us  with  Thy  Spirit 
to  walk  as  becomes  those  whom  Thou  hast  redeemed,  through 
Thy  Sou  Jesus  Christ,  our  Saviour.  Amen. 

III.  PRAYER  USED  AFTER  CONFIRMATION  AND    COMMUNION. 

O  Lord,  we  thank  Thee  for  having  preserved  us  safe  from 
all  the  perils  and  dangers  of  this  day  :  that  Thou  hast  given, 
us  health  and  strength,  food  and  clothing,  and  whilst  there  are 
BO  many  who  are  poor,  so  many  who  are  sick,  so  many  who 


APPENDIX  A.  301 

are  in  sorrow,  that  Thou  hast  given  us  so  richly  such  manifold 
and  great  blessings. 

Yet  more,  O  Lord,  we  thank  Thee  for  Thy  mercies  to  us 
in  Thy  Son  Jesus  Christ.  We  thank  Thee  for  Thy  infinite 
love  shown  in  our  redemption,  that  Thou  hast  opened,  through 
Thy  beloved  Son,  the  kingdom  of  heaven  to  all  believers. 
We  thank  Thee  for  the  full  assurance  of  hope  which  Thou 
hast  given  us,  that  if  our  earthly  tabernacle  be  dissolved,  we 
have  yet  a  building  of  God,  a  house  not  made  with  hands, 
eternal  in  the  heavens.  Thou  hast  shown  to  us  nothing  but 
goodness,  O  Lord,  for  this  life  and  for  life  eternal ;  and  yet 
we  have  sinned,  .and  are  sinning  against  Thee  daily.  We  are 
forfeiting  all  Thy  blessings,  and  turning  them  into  a  curse. 
Forgive  us,  for  Jesus  Christ's  sake,  all  and  each,  for  all  our 
many  sins  in  thought,  word,  and  deed;  whether  known  to 
others,  or  to  our  own  conscience  alone,  or  forgotten  even  by 
our  own  careless  hearts,  but  known  and  recorded  by  Thee, 
against  the  great  day  of  judgment. 

One  thing  more,  O  Lord,  we  pray  for,  without  which  all 
these  blessings  shall  only  condemn  us  the  more  heavily.  O 
Lord,  increase  and  keep  alive  in  us  Thy  faith.  Let  not  the 
world,  and  our  own  health,  and  the  many  good  things  which 
Thou  hast  given  us,  prove  a  snare  unto  us.  Let  us  endure, 
as  seeing  by  faith  Thee  who  art  invisible. 

O  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  didst  take  our  nature  upon  Thee, 
and  art  now  standing  as  the  Son  of  Man  at  the  right  hand  of 
the  Majesty  on  high,  reveal  Thyself  to  our  minds  and  hearts, 
as  Thou  didst  to  the  bodily  eyes  of  Thy  martyr  Stephen.  As 
Thou  didst  comfort  and  strengthen  him  in  his  suffering,  so,  O 
Lord,  do  Thou  warn  and  chasten  us  in  our  enjoyments  ; 
making  us  to  know  and  feel  that  in  Thee  is  our  only  life,  and 
that  if  we  cleave  not  to  Thee,  and  have  not  Thee  abiding  in 
its,  we  are  dead  now,  and  shall  be  dead  forever. 

Quicken  in  us  the  remembrance  of  our  baptism :  how  we 
were  pledged  to  become  Thy  true  servants  and  soldiers  to  our 
lives'  end.  Dispose  us  all  to  renew  this  pledge  from  the  bot- 
tom of  our  hearts,  both  those  of  us  who  are  going  to  receive 
the  rite  of  confirmation  soon,  and  those  of  us  who  have  re- 
ceived it  already,  and  those  of  us  who  may  expect  to  receive 
it  hereafter.  Quicken  in  as  many  of  us  as  have  either  this 
day  or  heretofore  been  partakers  in  the  communion  of  Thy 
body  and  blood,  the  remembrance  of  that  blessed  sacrament, 
VOL.  ii.  26 


302  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

• 

that  we  gave  ourselves  therein  to  be  wholly  Thine,  in  body, 
soul,  and  spirit,  that  we  might  evermore  dwell  hi  Thee,  and 
Thou  hi  us. 

O  Holy  Spirit  of  God,  who  art  the  only  author  of  all 
spiritual  life,  quicken  us  with  Thy  power,  and  preserve  and 
quicken  us  in  the  life  which  is  Thy  gift.  Forgive  us  that  we 
have  so  often  grieved  Thee,  and  preserve  us  from  grieving 
Thee  so  long  and  so  often,  that  Thou  wilt  depart  from  us  for 
evermore,  and  leave  us  to  a  state  beyond  repentance,  and  be- 
yond forgiveness.  Teach  us  to  remember  that  every  day 
which  we  spend  carelessly  and  unprofitably,  we  are  grieving 
Thee,  and  tempting  Thee  to  leave  us.  Let  not  our  pros- 
perity harden  our  hearts  to  our  destruction.  Screen  us  from 
the  horrible  sin  of  casting  a  stumbling-block  in  our  brother's 
way,  of  tempting  him  to  evil,  or  discouraging  him  from  good 
by  our  example,  or  by  our  laughter,  or  by  our  unkindness  and 
persecution. 

O  Lord  Almighty,  this  day  is  now  drawing  to  its  end.  May 
the  means  of  grace  which  Thou  hast  given  us  in  it  work  good 
in  us  for  to-morrow,  and  the  days  to  come.  May  Thy  bless- 
ing be  with  us  on  this  first  day  of  the  week,  to  guide  us  and 
to  strengthen  us  even  to  its  end. 

Bless  all  our  friends  in  all  places,  and  keep  them  hi  Thy 
faith  and  fear :  bless  Thy  universal  church  militant  here  on 
earth,  and  grant  that  all  who  confess  with  their  mouth  the 
Lord  Jesus,  may  believe  on  Him  in  their  hearts,  to  life  ever- 
lasting. Bless  our  Queen  and  our  country ;  that  we  may  be 
a  Christian  people,  not  in  word  only,  but  in  power.  Bless 
this  school,  that  it  may  be  a  place  of  godly  education,  to  Thy 
glory  and  the  salvation  of  our  own  souls.  Fill  us  with  Thy 
Holy  Spirit,  that  we  may  labor  in  our  several  duties  towards 
one  another  and  towards  Thee,  as  befits  those  whom  Thou 
hast  redeemed  by  the  blood  of  Thy  dear  Son. 

Finally,  we  thank  Thee  for  all  those,  whether  we  have 
known  them  on  earth,  or  whether  they  were  strangers  to  us, 
who  have  departed  this  life  in  Thy  faith  and  fear ;  and  who 
are  safe  and  at  rest  till  the  day  of  Thy  coming.  Increase 
their  number,  0  Lord,  and  enable  us  through  Thy  grace  to 
be  of  their  company,  that  when  Thou  comest  in  Thy  glorious 
majesty,  and  shalt  call  us  all  to  judgment,  we  may  stand  with 
all  Thy  faithful  people  at  Thy  right  hand,  and  may  hear  Thee 
call  us  "  blessed,"  and  bid  us  enter  into  Thy  kingdom  to  see 
God  face  to  face. 


APPENDIX   A.  303 


IV.       PRATER    USED    IK    THE    SICK   ROOMS. 

O  Lord  and  heavenly  Father,  we  come  before  Thee  with 
our  humble  thanks  for  all  Thy  mercies  towards  us,  more  espe- 
cially for  the  means  of  grace  which  Thou  hast  afforded  us  in 
this  interruption  to  our  usual  course  of  health.  We  thank 
Thee  for  thus  reminding  us  that  our  enjoyment  of  the  bless- 
ings of  this  world  will  not  last  forever  —  that  the  things  in 
which  we  commonly  take  delight  will  one  day  cease  to  please 
us.  We  thank  Thee  that  by  calling  us  off  for  a  little  while 
from  our  common  employments  and  amusements,  Thou  givest 
us  time  to  think  how  we  are  passing  our  life,  and  what  those 
joys  are  which  if  we  once  learn  to  know  them  will  abide  with 
us  forever.  Lord,  deliver  us  from  all  impatience  and  from 
all  fear  for  our  bodies,  and  fill  us  at  the  same  time  with  spir- 
itual fear ;  let  us  not  be  afraid  of  pain  or  sickness,  but  let  us 
be  afraid  of  Thee,  and  not  waste  the  opportunity  which  Thou 
art  now  affording  us.  Give  us  grace  to  think  under  the  vis- 
itations of  light  sickness  whether  we  are  fit  to  be  visited  with 
dangerous  sickness ;  let  us  consider  what  we  should  -  do  if, 
while  our  body  were  weakened,  our  mind  should  be  clouded 
also,  so  that  we  could  not  then  pray  to  Thee  for  succor.  Now, 
therefore,  O  Lord,  teach  us  to  call  on  Thee,  while  we  can  call 
on  Thee,  to  think  on  Thee  while  our  reason  is  yet  in  its  vigor. 
Teach  us  to  look  into  our  heart  and  life,  to  consider  how  Thou 
wouldst  judge  us,  to  ask  Thy  forgiveness  through  Thy  Son 
Jesus  Christ,  for  all  that  Thou  seest  amiss  in  us,  and  by  the 
help  of  Thy  Holy  Spirit  to  overcome  all  that  is  evil  in  our 
heart,  and  to  learn  and  practise  all  that  is  good.  Restore  us 
in  Thy  good  time  to  our  usual  health,  and  grant  that  this  in- 
terruption to  it  may  be  sanctified  to  our  souls'  health,  so 
making  it  not  an  evil  to  u«,  but  an  infinite  blessing,  for  the 
sake  of  Jesus  Christ,  our  Saviour. 

V.    THANKSGIYING  ON  A  BOT's  RECOVERING  FROM  SICKNESS. 

O  Lord,  our  heavenly  Father,  we  give  Thee  our  humble 
and  hearty  thanks  for  Thy  goodness  shown  to  Thy  servant 
whom  Thou  hast  been  pleased  to  visit  with  sickness.  We 
thank  Thee  for  the  prospect  which  Thou  hast  given  him  of 
recovery  of  his  full  health  and  strength,  as  well  as  for  the 
present  abatement  of  his  disorder.  Grant  that  Thy  mercies 
may  be  felt  by  him  and  us ;  that  they  may  not  lead  us  to 
tempt  Thy  long-suffering  by  continued  hardness  of  heart,  but 


804  LIFE  OP  DR.  ABNOLD. 

may  make  us  desirous  of  showing  our  gratitude  to  Thee  by 
living  according  to  Thy  will.  May  we  remember  how  nearly 
health  and  sickness  come  together,  and  that  the  time  will 
surely  come  to  us  all  when  we  shall  be  raised  up  from  sick- 
ness no  more. 

While  Thou  yet  sparest  us,  give  us  grace  to  turn  to  Thee 
in  earnest,  that  we  may  not  have  to  turn  to  Thee  when  it  is 
too  late  with  a  vain  regret  and  despair.  Grant  this,  O  Lord, 
for  Thy  dear  Son's  sake,  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

The  following  prayers  were  contributed  by  Dr.  Ar- 
nold, in  1842,  to  a  "  Book  of  Family  Prayers  for  every 
Day  in  the  Year,"  (published  by  Mr.  Whittlemore, 
Brighton,)  in  answer  to  a  request  made  to  him  by  the 
Editor,  and  they  are  here  inserted  by  the  kind  permis- 
sion of  the  publisher.  The  subjects  of  them  were  doubt- 
less suggested  by  two  wants  which  he  often  lamented, 
in  the  public  services  of  the  Liturgy,  viz.,  a  more  di- 
rect reference  to  the  blessings  of  the  natural  seasons, 
and  also  an  offering  of  thanksgivings  and  prayers  for 
the  blessings  of  law  and  government,  unconnected  with 
any  such  political  allusions  as  occur  in  the  Four  State 
Services  appended  to  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 

I.     JOHN   IV.   35. 

O  Lord  God,  who  givest  us  the  promise  of  food  for  our 
bodies,  and  markest  the  seed  sown  to  grow  up  and  ripen  and 
yield  its  fruits  in  its  season,  do  Thou  be  pleased  to  give  us 
the  true  bread  of  life,  and  to  bless  and  ripen  in  us  the  seed 
sown  by  Thy  Holy  Spirit  in  our  hearts,  that  it  may  bring 
forth  fruit  unto  life  eternal.  Give  us,  we  beseech  Thee,  the 
true  bread  of  life,  Thy  beloved  Son.  May  we  ever  hunger 
after  Him,  and  ever  be  filled.  May  we  feed  upon  Him  by 
faith,  receiving  into  our  hearts  His  most  precious  body  and 
blood,  even  the  virtue  of  His  sacrifice  which  alone  cleanseth 
\rorn  all  sin.  May  we  cleave  unto  Him,  and  grow  into  Him, 
that  we  may  be  one  with  Him  and  He  with  us.  Ripen  in  us 
also,  we  pray  Thee,  the  seed  of  Thy  Holy  Spirit  Make  us  to 
cherish  every  good  resolution  which  He  suggests  to  us,  and 
dread  the  great  sin  of  grieving  Him.  Save  us  from  hard- 
ness of  heart  which  will  not  listen  to  Him ;  from  carelessness 


APPENDIX  A.  305 

and  lightness  of  heart  which  forgets  Him ;  from  worldliness 
and  overmuch  business,  which  cares  for  and  loves  other 
things  more.  Bless  Thy  spiritual  works  even  as  Thy  natural 
works,  and  gather  in  Thy  corn  into  Thy  garner,  to  Thy  glory 
and  our  salvation,  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

II.       EVENING. 

0  Lord,  who  hast  given  us  the  summer  sun  to  gladden  us 
with  his  light  and  to  ripen  the  fruits  of  the  earth  for  our  sup- 
port, and  who  biddest  him  to  set  when  his  work  is  done,  that 
he  may  rise  again  to-morrow ;  give  Thy  blessing  to  us  Thy 
servants,  that  the  lesson  of  the  works  of  Thy  hand  may  be 
learnt  by  us  Thy  living  works,  and  that  we  may  run  our 
course  like  the  sun  which  is  now  gone  from  us. 

Let  us  rise  early  and  go  late  to  rest,  being  ever  busy  and 
zealous  in  doing  Thy  will.  Let  our  light  shine  before  men, 
that  they  may  glorify  Thee  our  Heavenly  Father.  Let  us  do 
good  all  our  days,  and  be  useful  to  and  comfort  others.  And 
let  us  finish  our  course  in  faith,  that  we  too  may  rise  again 
to  a  course  which  shall  never  end,  through  the  only  merits  of 
Thy  beloved  Son,  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 

in. 

O  Lord,  we  beseech  Thee,  teach  us  to  mark  the  flight  of 
tune,  and  learn  from  the  course  of  the  natural  seasons  to  take 
a  lesson  for  the  benefit  of  our  own  souls. 

The  summer  is  nearly  ended,  and  if  Thou  seest  fit  to  de- 
prive us  of  our  time  of  harvest,  or  if  we  have  neglected  to 
do  our  part  towards  raising  the  fruits  of  the  earth  for  our  sus- 
tenance, then  we  can  no  more  make  good  our  neglect,  and  it 
will  be  too  late  to  wish  that  we  had  been  wiser.  O  Lord,  our 
lives  are  fast  running  away,  like  the  natural  year ;  we  have 
received  Thy  good  gifts,  the  sun  and  the  rain  of  Thy  grace, 
that  we  should  bring  forth  spiritual  fruits.  Now  is  the  time 
of  the  harvest ;  now  mayst  Thou  come  to  see  whether  or  no 
the  seed  which  has  been  sown  in  us  is  bringing  forth  fruit  in 
its  season.  Every  day,  O  Lord,  mayst  Thou  expect  to  find 
fruit  in  us ;  our  spiritual  harvest  should  be  ever  ready  for  the 
sickle.  Yet  how  many  days  hast  Thou  come  seeking  fruit  in 
us,  and  finding  none.  How  many  days  have  we  spent  in  sin, 
or  in  that  which  Thou  callest  sin,  though  we  deem  it  innocent, 
26*  T 


306  LIFE  OF  DR..  ARNOLD. 

in  following  our  own  ways,  and  our  own  pleasures,  and  neither 
working  nor  enjoying  to  Thy  glory,  because  we  thought  not 
of  Thee,  nor  of  Thy  beloved  Son. 

So,  in  one  sense,  O  Lord,  the  summer  is  ended,  and  we 
are  not  saved.  One  summer,  many  summers  have  been  so 
ended,  —  many  times  when  we  might  have  brought  forth  fruit 
and  did  not :  —  many  birthdays  have  returned  to  us,  and  yet 
have  not  found  us  nearer  Thee,  although  we  were  nearer  to 
death  and  judgment. 

Yet  not  for  nothing,  O  Lord,  does  any  man  grieve  Thy 
Holy  Spirit  and  turn  away  from  Thy  loving  call.  Refusing 
Thy  strength,  we  become  weaker ;  refusing  to  live  by  faith, 
heavenly  things  become  darker  to  us  ;  despising  Thy  long- 
suffering,  our  hearts  become  harder ;  we  are  not  what  we  once 
were ;  we  are  stained  with  many  fresh  sins,  encumbered  with 
many  infirmities  ;  we  have  built  again  the  things  which  Christ 
destroyed ;  and  next  year  we  shall  not  be  what  we  are  now, 
but  harder ;  and  Thou  hast  said,  there  is  a  state  in  which  it  is 
impossible  to  be  renewed  unto  repentance. 

O  Lord,  save  us  from  this  dreadful  state,  a  state  of  con- 
demnation even  before  the  judgment.  O  Lord,  yet  once  more 
we  pray  Thee  to  deliver  us  ;  for  Thy  Son's  sake,  whose  name 
we  bear,  and  by  whose  blood  we  are  redeemed,  have  mercy 
upon  us.  Cleanse  our  hearts  from  their  manifold  sins.  Give 
strength  to  our  feeble  purposes.  Deliver  us  from  the  malice 
of  our  enemy,  to  whom  we  have  betrayed  ourselves.  Deliver 
us  from  sin  which  cannot  be  repented  of;  from  the  last  hard- 
ness of  heart,  to  be  melted  only  by  Thy  judgments  when  the 
tune  of  mercy  is  over  O  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  who  didst  warn 
Thy  disciples  when  they  failed  to  watch  with  Thee,  that  they 
should  watch  and  pray  lest  they  entered  into  temptation,  grant 
us  the  help  of  Thy  Holy  Spirit,  to  do  those  things  which 
Thou  commandest  us.  Help  us  to  watch  and  help  us  to  pray. 
Keep  alive  in  us  the  resolutions  which  fade  so  quickly.  Call 
to  prayer  the  murmuring  heart  that  tries  to  escape  from  Thy 
service,  and  when  we  kneel  down  and  our  lips  utter  words  of 
prayer;  do  Thou  then  restrain  our  wandering  thoughts,  and  fix 
our  whole  soul  and  spirit  in  one  earnest  sense  of  our  own  per- 
ishing condition  and  of  Thine  almighty  and  ever  present  love 
to  us.  And  now,  O  Lord,  the  words  which  we  have  spoken, 
let  us  not  deceive  ourselves  by  them ;  let  not  our  lips  have 
prayed  and  our  hearts  be  silent  Forgive  the  unworthiness 
of  all  our  service,  and  cleanse  us  from  the  sin  which  cleaves 


APPENDIX  A.  307 

to  us  in  body,  soul,  and  spirit,  by  Thy  most  precious  blood, 
and  by  the  grace  of  Thy  Holy  Spirit.  And  O  God  most 
holy,  receive  our  prayers  in  the  name  of  Thy  beloved  Son, 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord. 


IV. 

"  O  pray  for  the  peace  of  Jerusalem :  they  shall  prosper  that  love  thee." 

PSALM  cxxii. 

O  Lord,  who  by  Thy  Holy  Apostle  hast  commanded  us  to 
make  prayers  and  intercessions  for  all  men,  we  implore  Thy 
blessing,  more  especially  upon  this  our  country,  upon  its  gov- 
ernment, and  upon  its  people. 

May  Thy  Holy  Spirit  be  with  our  rulers,  with  the  Queen, 
and  all  who  are  in  authority  under  her.  Grant  that  they  may 
govern  in  Thy  faith  and  fear,  striving  to  put  down  all  evil, 
and  to  encourage  and  support  all  that  is  good.  Give  Thy 
Spirit  of  wisdom  to  those  whose  business  it  is  to  make  laws 
for  us.  Grant  that  they  may  understand  and  feel  how  great 
a  work  Thou  hast  given  them  to  do ;  that  they  may  not  do  it 
lightly  or  foolishly,  or  from  any  evil  passion,  or  in  ignorance, 
but  gravely,  soberly,  and  with  a  godly  spirit,  enacting  always 
things  just,  and  things  wise,  and  things  merciful,  to  the  put- 
ting away  of  all  wrong  and  oppression,  and  to  the  advance- 
ment of  the  true  welfare  of  Thytpeople.  Give  to  us  and  all 
this  nation  a  spirit  of  dutiful  obedience  to  the  laws,  not  only 
for  wrath  but  also  for  conscience'  sake.  Teach  us  to  remem- 
ber Thy  Apostle's  charge,  to  render  to  all  their  dues,  tribute 
to  whom  tribute  is  due,  custom  to  whom  custom,  not  defraud- 
ing or  suffering  to  defraud  those  who  in  the  .receiving  of  cus- 
tom and  tribute  are  Thy  ministers,  attending  continually  upon 
this  very  thing. 

Give  peace  in  our  time,  O  Lord !  Preserve  both  us  and 
•  our  government  from  the  evil  spirit  of  ambition  and  pride, 
and  teach  us  to  value,  and  to  labor  with  all  sincerity  to  pre- 
serve peace  with  all  nations,  not  indulging  in  taunts  and  rail- 
ings against  other  people,  but  showing  forth  a  spirit  of  meek- 
ness, as  becomes  those  who  call  themselves  Christ's  servants. 
Save  us  from  all  those  national  sins  which  expose  us  most 
justly  to  thy  heavy  judgments.  From  unbelief  and  profane- 
ness,  from  injustice  and  oppression,  from  hardness  of  heart 
and  neglect  of  the  poor,  from  a  careless  and  worldly  spirit, 
working  and  enjoying  with  no  thought  of  Thee ;  from  these 


LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 


and  all  other  sins,  be  Thou  pleased  to  preserve  us,  and  give 
us  each  one  for  himself  a  holy  watchfulness,  that  we  may  not 
by  our  sins  add  to  the  guilt  and  punishment  of  our  country, 
but  may  strive  to  keep  ourselves  pure  from  the  blood  of  all 
men,  and  to  bring  down  Thy  blessing  upon  ourselves  and  all 
who  belong  to  us. 

These  things  and  all  else  which  may  be  good  for  our  tem- 
poral and  for  our  spiritual  welfare,  we  humbly  beseech  Thee 
to  grant  in  the  name  and  for  the  sake  of  Thy  dear  Son,  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord. 


(B.) 

It  has  been  thought  worth  while  k>  select  a  few  of  the 
subjects  wliich  Dr  Arnold  chose  for  exercises  at  Rugby, 
both  as  an  illustration  of  what  has  been  said  on  this 
point  in  the  Chapter  on  his  school  life ;  and  also  be- 
cause, at  least  to  those  who  knew  him,  they  would 
suggest,  perhaps,  as  much  as  anything  which  could  be 
given,  his  favorite  images  and  trains  of  thought. 
They  were  of  course  varied  with  translations  from  the 
authors  he  most  admired,  and  he  used  from  time  to 
time  to  give  criticisms  on  different  books  or  poems. 
Many  of  the  subjects,  as  will  be  seen,  are  capable  of 
various  applications,  which  he  used  to  indicate  to  the 
boys  when  he  set  the  subjects.  The  subjects  of  the 
last  half-year  of  his  life  have  been  given  entire,  and 
those  who  have  read  the  account  of  that  period  will 
trace  the  connection  of  many  of  them  with  some  of 
the  thoughts  then  uppermost  in  his  mind. 

SUBJECTS    FOB    PROSE    EXERCISES. 

1.  The  difference  between  advantages  and  merits. 

2.  On  the  excellences  of  Translation,  and  some  of  its  diffV 
culties. 

3.  I  've  heard  of  hearts  unkind,  kind  deeds 

With  coldness  still  returning, 
Alas !  the  gratitude  of  men 
Hath  oftener  left  me  mourning. 


APPENDIX  B.  309 

4.  Conversation  between  Thomas  Aquinas,  James  Watt, 
and  Sir  Walter  Scott. 

5.  How  far  the  dramatic  faculty  is  compatible  with  the  love 
of  truth. 

6.  The  principal  events  and  men  of  England,  France,  Ger- 
many, and  Holland,  A.  D.  1600. 

7.  The  ideal  is  superior  to  the  real. 

8.  The  good  and  evil  which  resulted  from  the  seven  years' 
war. 

9.  Cogitamus  secundum  naturam,  loquimur  ex  praeceptis, 
agimus  e  consuetudine.     (Bacon.) 

10.  Magnus  esse  debet  historiam  legentibus  fructus,  supe- 
rioris   asvi  calamitates  cum  hac  nostra  humanitate  et  tran- 
quillitate  conferentibus. 

11.  Parum   valet  rerum   ipsarum    scientia,   nisi    accedat 
ingenii    vigor,  quae    informem    molem    in  veram    doctrinam 
effingat. 

12.  Henricus  Jenkyns,  jam  extrema  senectute,  quae  in  tarn 
longa  vita  memoria  dignissima  viderit,  nepotibus  enarrat. 

13.  An  bene  constitutum  sit  debitoris  non  bona  tantum, 
sed  etiam  corpus  creditor!  esse  obnoxium. 

14.  Franco-Gallorum  exercitus,  devicta  inferiori  JEgypto, 
superiorem  et  urbem  Thebas  Ingreditur. 

15.  De  saeculo,  quo  Esaias  vaticinia  sua  edidit 

16.  Diversi  nuntii  a   Novoburiensi   praelio   Londinum  et 
Oxoniam  pervenientes. 

17.  Oxoniae  descriptio,  qualem  redivivus  describeret  He- 
rodotus.    ( Greek.) 

18.  Quae  in  quascunque  regiones  peregrinantibus  precipue 
notanda. 

19.  Alexander  Babylonem  ingreditur,  neque  ita  multo  post 
morbo   correptus,  inter  summum  suorum  fletum  et  dolorem 
animum  expirat. 

20.  Africa  provincia,  postquam  Romanis  subjecta  esset,  quas 
potissimum  vices  usque  ad  hanc  astatem  subierit. 

21.  Non  ea  est  vitse  nostrae  ratio  ut  sciamus  omnia,  neque 
ut  de  omnibus  incerti  dubitemus ;  sed  ut  neque  scientes  plane, 
neque  ignorantes,  probabili  causa  moti  credamus. 

22.  Definiantur  voces  quae  sequuntur,  TO  rifuov,  TO  nd^ov, 
iKK^rjcria,  fides :  necnon,  voces  Anglicae,  —  "  revolution,"  "  phi- 
losophy," "  art,"  "  religion,"   "  duty,"  "  romantic,"  "  subUme," 
"  pretty." 

23.  Judaeua  quidam  Athenas  devectus  Socrati  de  repubu'ca 


310  LIFE    OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

et  puerorum  institutione  disputant!  forte  auditorem  se  et  inter- 
rogatorem  praebet. 

24.  De  veris  rerum  miraculis. 

25.  De    primaevis    animalibus    et    terrae   hujus    mirandis 
vicibus. 

26.  Europam  per  aestatem  anni  1815  circumvectus,  quern 
rerum  statum  apud  singulos  populos  offendisset. 

27.  Descriptio  monasterii,  quae  sit  singularum  domi  partium 
distributio,  qualemque  ibi  vitam  degant  monachi. 

28.  De  celeberrimis  quae  in  omni  uieuxoria   scriptae  sunt 
legibus. 

29.  Calendarium  naturale. 

30.  Ea  demum  vera  est  voluptas  quae  non  tarn  spe  delectat, 
quam  recordatione  praeterita  —  ("  Look  not  on  pleasures  as 
they  come,  but  go.") 

SUBJECTS    FOR    VERSE. 

1.  Pendent  opera  interrupta. 

2.  Venus  eadem  quse  Libitina. 

3.  Prytaneum. 

4.  Byzantinum   sive    Romanum    Imperium    inter  novas 
Europae  respublicas  solum  antiquitatis  monumentum  super- 
stes  manet. 

5.  Africa,  bonarum  artium  nutrix,  nunc  barbaric  premitur. 

6.  *Epa>T(s  (ro(f>ias  Trdptbpoi. 

7.  Mediterranei  Asias  campi. 

8.  Richardi  Cromwellii  in  Senatum  reditus. 

9.  Vulgo  ferunt  beatas  esse  nuptias,  quas  sol  illuminat ; 
inferias,  quibus  irrorant  nubes. 

10.  The  Land's  End. 

11.  Supremi  fructus  anni. 

12.  Siccitate  laborant  agri. 

13.  Festum  omnium  Animarum,  sive  Dies  in  memoriam 
Christianorum  defunctorum  celebratus. 

14.  Navr  d(f>avi(r6fl(ra. 

15.  Epicurus  scholam  in  hortulo  suo  in-t ituit. 

16.  Polycarpi  Martyrium. 

17.  Magna  est  funerum  religio. 

18.  Oculis  capto  mens  tamen  intus  viget. 

19.  Christianus,  trajecto  flumine,  ob  pericula  viae  feliciter 
euperata,  grates  agit.     (Pilgrim's  Progress.) 

20.  (The  Seven  Sleepers.)     De  septem  illis  pueris  qui  cum 


APPENDIX  B.  311 

per  CLXXX.  annos  dormiissent,  turn  autem  miraculo  experge- 
facti  sunt. 

21.  Duodecim  vultures  a.  Romulo  visas. 

22.  Ulysses  in  ipso  mortis  limine  cum  matris  umbra  collo- 
quitur. 

23.  Demosthenis  suprema  fata. 

24.  Fasti  Christiani. 

25.  Adventus  Domini  qualis  ab  ecclesia  singulis  annis  cel- 
ebratur. 

26.  Urbis  Romae  vicissitudines. 

27.  Hortus  Anglicus. 

28.  Prospectabat  pulcherrimum  sinum,  antequam  Vesuvius 
mons  ardescens  faciem  loci  verteret     Tac.  Ann.  iv.  67. 

29.  Pastores  duo,  hie  mare  ille  dulcis  aquas  flumina  after- 
nis  versibus  laudant. 

30.  Ne  plus  ultra. 

PROSE    SUBJECTS,   FROM   FEBRUARY    TO    JUNE,  1842. 

1.  De  fcenore  et  de  legibus  fcenebribus. 

2.  Duo  viatores,  ab  ipso  fonte  profecti,  Rhodani  cursum 
animi  causa  usque  ad  mare  explorant. 

3.  Quis  rerum  fuerit  status  circa  annum  post  Christum 
sexcentesimum. 

4.  "  Nunc  dimittis:"  (Christianus,  ipsis  Apostolis  aequalis, 
jam  ad  centesimum  annum  provectus,  grates  Deo  agit  ob  fidem 
per  universum  fere  terrarum  orbem  pervulgatam.) 

5.  John,  xvi.  22.     "If  I  had  not  come  and  spoken  unto 
them,  they  had  not  had  sin ;  but  now  they  have  no  cloak  for 
their  sin."     (English  Prose.) 

6.  De  sectis  Judaeorum,  Pharisaeis,  Sadducasis,  et  Esseni- 
bus ;  necnon  de  Publicanis  et  quos  vocant  Judaizantibus  sive 
Christianis  Judaismum  affectantibus. 

7.  NfcoTep/fotxri  rois  oXiyois  dvriXfytt  6  0pa(rvj3ouXos.    (Gk.) 

8.  QumtiUus  Varus  cum  legionibus  in  Germania  occidione 
occisus. 

9.  Caius  Trebatius  Testa  a  Britannia  Ciceronis   litteris, 
(Ep.  ad  Div.  lib.  vii.)  respondet. 

10.  De  vita  et  moribus  Sultani  Mamudi. 

11.  De  seditione  inter  Athenienses  qua  quadringenti  illi 
vlri  rempublicam  invaserunt. 

12.  Macedonum  et  Russorum  regna  inter  se  comparantur. 

13.  QuaBritur  quae  sit  philosophia  et  quam  ob  causam  ei  a 
pluribus  invideatur. 


312  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

TERSE    SUBJECTS,  FROM   FEBRUARY    TO   JUNE,  1842. 

1.  Abydos  a  Philippe  expugnata. 

2.  Gray's  Hymn  to  Adversity. 

3.  Sophonisba. 

4.  Fodinae  mercenarii  subito  terrae  lapsu  poene  obruti  post 
longum  et  gravissimum  vitae  discrimen  tandem  ad  lucem  pro- 
feruntur. 

5.  Hannibal  Italiam  relinquit. 

6.  Novi  Ulyssis  errores  —  columnae  Herculis,  Iberia,  Oce- 
anus. 

7.  Scipio  Africanus  in  cella  Jovis  secum  meditatur. 

8.  Translation  from  Cowper's  Task,  Book  IV. 

9.  Kehama  proculum  immortalitatis  impius  arripit. 

10.  Translation  from  Pope's  Third  Moral  Epistle. 

11.  Prometheus  Liberatus. 

12.  Fortuna. 

13.  Halcyones. 

14.  Puteus  in  Monte  Zion  defossus  vivas  aquarum  venas  in 
lucem  aperit  (in  allusion  to  an  Artesian  well  lately  sunk  in 
the  dry  rock  of  Jerusalem). 

15.  Porcia,  Catonis  Filia,  Bruti  Uxor. 

16.  Domus  ultima. 


(C.) 

EPITAPHS 

WRITTEN  BY  DR.   ARNOLD,  TO   THE  MEMORY  OF   A  PUPIL, 
AND   OF  AN  ASSISTANT-MASTER  IN  RUGBY  CHAPEL. 

M.   8. 

HENRICI    8PARKES   HATCH,* 

SCHOL^E  RUGBIEN8I8   ALUMNI 

QUEM  BONARUM  LITERARUM  8TUDII8  FELICITER  INCUMBENTEM 

8UA  Q.UOQUE   DISCIPLINA  CARERE  NOLUIT   CHRISTU8  J 

8ED    LENI   PRIMO   MANU   ACCEPTUM   ATQUE   EXCITATTTM 

DIVINJEQXJE   SU^E  VOCI  INTER   L^CTA   OMNIA   ASSUEFACTUM, 

*  See  Letters  cui.  cix.    Sermons,  vol.  vi.  —  Death  and  Salvation. 


APPENDIX   C.  313 

GRAVI   TANDEM   DOLORE   LENTIQTTE  MORBI  CRUCIATIBUS, 
QU^E   EST   CHRISTIANORUM   INSTITUTIO, 

DIU    TENTATUM 
AD   SUUM  8UORUMQUE   EXEMPLAR  INFORMAVIT, 

INFORMATUM   BREVI   AD   SE   ACCE88IVIT. 

VO8   AUTEM   TAM   BONI    SANCTIQUE   ADOLESCENTIS  .EQUALES. 
SI   QUANDO   EUM   IMMATURA   ABREPTUM   MORTE 
VESTRO   AMICORUM   CHORO    DEESSE   DOLEBITIS, 

AT   EIDEM   EXACTO   CERTAMINE   VICTORI 
EXAUCTORATO   PRIMIS   STIPENDIIS   CHRISTI   MILITI 

PORTAM   CCELI   QTJIETEM    NOLITE    INVIDERE. 
DE8IDERANDUS   QUIDEM   INTERIIT,   SED   NON   LUGENDUS, 

QUIPPE   TALIUM   EST   REGNUM   DEI. 
VIXIT  ANNOS   XIX.  MENSES   IX.   DIEM   I. 

OBIIT   A.D.   V.   IDUS   OCTOBR.   ANNO    SALUTIS    MDCCCXXXV. 
PRIMUS   IN   HOC   LOCO   SEPULTUS   EST. 


M.   8. 

ALEXANDRI  FREDERICI   MERIVALE,   A.M. 
COLLEGII   SS.    TRENITATIS 
APUD   CANTABRIGIEN8ES 

OI.IM   8OCII 

ET   HUJUSCE    SCHOLJE 

PER   TRES   ANNOS    E   MAGISTRI8. 

QUI  PXJBLICA   ET   PRIVATA  MUNERA 

OPTIME   AUSPICATU8 
QUIPPE    QUI  CHRISTUM    SOLUM  AUSPICEM 

NOVISSET, 

INOPINATO   CORREPTUS   MORBI   IMPETU, 

RECENTISSIME   NUPTAM  UXOREM 

MORIENS    RELIQUIT, 

INFELICEM    INFELIX 

NISI   QUOD   CHRISTIANAM   CHRISTIANUS. 

DOMINUS  AUTEM   QUEM   DILIGIT   CASTIGAT. 

OBIIT   A.D.    III.   ID.    JUN.   MDCCCXLI.   .ETAT.   XXVII. 

STOKLJi   CANONICORUM    JUXTA    EXONIAM 

JACET   SEPULTUS. 

ii.  27 


314  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

(D.) 
EXTRACTS   FROM  TRAVELLING  JOURNALS. 

It  will  have  been  already  gathered  from  Dr.  Arnold's 
letters,  how  great  a  pleasure  he  took  in  travelling.  It 
was,  in  fact,  except  so  far  as  his  domestic  life  can  be  so 
considered,  his  chief  recreation,  combining,  as  it  did, 
opportunities  for  following  out  his  delight  in  History 
with  his  love  of  external  nature,  both  in  its  poetical  and 
scientific  aspect.  In  the  works  of  art  he  took  but  little 
interest,  and  any  extended  researches  in  physical 
science  were  precluded  by  want  of  time,  whilst  from 
natural  history  he  had  an  instinctive  but  characteristic 
shrinking.  "  The  whole  subject,"  he  said,  "  of  the 
brute  creation  is  to  me  one  of  such  painful  mystery, 
that  I  dare  not  approach  it."  But  geography  and  ge- 
ology in  all  their  forms,  plants  and  flowers,  not  from 
any  botanical  interest,  but  for  their  own  sakes, — 
beauty  of  architecture  and  of  scenery,  —  had  an  at- 
traction for  him  which  it  is  difficult  adequately  to  ex- 
press ;  and  when  to  these  were  added  the  associations 
of  great  historical  event,  it  may  well  be  conceived  how 
enthusiastic  was  his  delight  in  his  short  summer  tours, 
and  how  essential  a  part  of  his  life  they  became, 
whether  in  present  enjoyment,  or  past  recollection. 

It  was  his  practice  when  travelling,  to  keep  very 
minute  journals,  which  —  as  his  tours  were,  partly 
from  necessity,  and  partly  from  choice,  extremely  rapid 
—  he  wrote  always  on  the  spot,  or  immediately  after, 
and  often  whilst  actually  in  the  act  of  travelling.  And, 
being  addressed  throughout  to  his  absent  wife  or  chil- 
dren, as  the  case  might  be,  they  partake  partly  of  the 
character  of  a  private  diary,  or  of  private  letters,  but 
rather  of  conversation,  such  as  he  would  have  held 
with  those  whom  he  was  addressing,  had  they  been 
actually  with  him. 

It  is  obvious  that  no  selections  from  journals  of  this 
description  can  give  any  adequate  notion  of  the  whole, 


APPENDIX  D.  315 

of  which  they  are  fragments,  —  of  the  domestic  play- 
fulnesses,—  the  humorous  details,  inverse  or  prose,  of 
travelling  adventures,  —  the  very  jolts  of  the  carriage, 
and  difficulties  of  the  road,  —  the  rapid  sketches  of  the 
mere  geographical  outline  of  the  country,  —  the  suc- 
cession of  historical  associations,  —  the  love,  brought 
out  more  strongly  by  absence,  for  his  own  church  and 
country,  —  the  strain  of  devout  thought  and  prayer 
pervading  the  whole, —  which,  when  taken  altogether, 
give  a  more  living  image  of  the  man  himself,  than 
anything  else  which  he  has  left.  But  to  publish  the 
whole  of  any  one  of  the  many  volumes  through  which 
these  journals  extend,  was  for  many  reasons  impossi- 
ble, and  it  has  therefore  been  thought  desirable  to 
select,  in  the  following  extracts,  such  passages  as  con- 
tained matters  of  the  most  general  interest,  with  so 
much  of  the  ordinary  context  as  might  serve  to  obvi- 
ate the  abruptness  of  their  introduction,  and  in  the 
hope  that  due  allowance  will  be  made  for  the  difference 
in  their  character,  as  they  are  read,  thus  torn  from 
their  natural  place,  instead  of  appearing  in  the  general 
course  of  his  thoughts  and  observations,  as  they  were 
suggested  by  the  various  scenes  and  objects  through 
which  he  was  passing. 


I.       TOUR   IN    THE    NORTH    OF    ITALY,    1825. 

Chiavasso,  July  3,  1825. 

1.  I  can  now  understand  what  Signer  A said  of  the 

nakedness  of  the  country  between  Hounslow  and  Laleham, 
as  all  the  plains  here  are  covered  with  fruit-trees,  and  the 
villages,  however  filthy  within,  are  generally  picturesque 
either  from  situation,  or  from  the  character  of  their  buildings, 
and  their  lively  white.  The  architecture  of  the  churches, 
however,  is  quite  bad ;  and  certainly  their  villages  bear  no 
more  comparison  with  those  of  Northamptonshire,  than  St. 
Giles's  does  with  Waterloo  Place.  There  are  more  ruins 
here  than  I  expected,  —  ruined  towers,  I  mean,  of  modern 
date,  which  are  frequent  in  the  towns  and  villages.  The 
countenances  of  the  people  are  fine,  but  we  see  no  gentlemen 


316  LIFE  OF  DR.  ABNOLD. 

anywhere,  or  else  the  distinction  of  ranks  is  lost  altogether, 
except  with  the  court  and  the  high  nobility.  In  the  valley  of 
Aosta,  through  which  we  were  travelling  all  yesterday,  the 
whole  land,  I  hear,  is  possessed  by  the  peasants,  and  there  are 
no  great  proprietors  at  all.  I  am  quite  satisfied  that  there  is 
a  good  in  this,  as  well  as  an  evil,  and  that  our  state  of  society 
is  not  so  immensely  superior  as  we  flatter  ourselves  I  know 
that  our  higher  classes  are  immensely  superior  to  any  one 
here;  but  I  doubt  whether  our  system  produces  a  greater 
amount  of  happiness,  or  saves  more  misery  than  theirs ;  and 
I  cannot  help  thinking,  that,  if  their  dreadful  superstition 
were  exchanged  for  the  Gospel,  their  division  of  society  would 
more  tend  to  the  general  good,  than  ours.  Their  superstition 
is  indeed  most  shocking,  and  yet  with  some  points  in  which 
we  should  do  well  to  imitate  them.  I  like  the  simple  crosses 
and  oratories  by  the  road-side,  and  the  texts  of  Scripture 
which  one  often  sees  quoted  upon  them  ;  but  they  are  pro- 
faned by  such  a  predominance  of  idolatry  to  the  Virgin,  and  of 
falsehood  and  folly  about  the  Saints,  that  no  man  can  tell  what 
portion  of  the  water  of  life  is  still  retained  for  those  who 
drink  it  so  corrupted.  I  want  more  than  ever  to  see  and  talk 
with  some  of  their  priests,  who  are  both  honest  and  sensible, 
if,  indeed,  any  man  can  be  so,  and  yet  belong  to  a  system  so 
abominable. 

July  25, 1825. 

2.  On  the  cliff  above  the  Lake  of  Como.  —  We  are  on  a 
mule-track  that  goes  from  Como  along  the  eastern  shore  of 
the  lake,  and  as  the  mountains  go  sheer  down  into  the  water, 
the  mule-track  is  obliged  to  be  cut  out  of  their  sides,  h'ke  a  ter- 
race, half-way  between  their  summits  and  their  feet  They 
are  covered  with  wood,  all  chestnut,  from  top  to  bottom,  ex- 
cept where  patches  have  been  found  level  enough  for  houses 
to  stand  on,  and  vines  to  grow ;  but  just  where  we  are  it  is 
quite  lonely ;  I  look  up  to  the  blue  sky,  and  down  to  the  blue 
lake,  the  one  just  above  me,  and  the  other  just  below  me,  and 
see  both  through  the  thick  branches  of  the  chestnuts.  Seven- 
teen or  eighteen  vessels,  with  their  white  sails,  are  enlivening 
the  lake  ;  and  about  half  a  mile  on  my  right  the  rock  is  too 
steep  for  anything  to  go  on  it,  and  goes  down  a  bare  cliff. 
A  little  beyond,  I  see  some  terraces  and  vines,  and  bright 
white  houses ;  and  further  still,  there  is  a  little  low  point, 
running  out  into  the  lake,  which  just  affords  room  for  a  vit 


APPENDIX  D.  317 

lage,  close  on  the  water's  edge,  and  a  white  church  tower 
rising  in  the  midst  of  it.  The  opposite  shore  is  just  the 
same  ;  villages  and  mountains,  and  trees,  and  vines,  all  one 
perfect  loveliness.  I  have  found  plenty  of  the  red  cyclamen, 
whose  perfume  is  exquisite. 

On  the  edge  of  the  Lake  of  Como.  —  We  have  made  our 
way  down  to  the  water's  edge  to  bathe,  and  are  now  sitting  on 
a  stone  to  cool.  No  words  can  describe  the  beauty  of  all  the 
scenery ;  we  stopped  at  a  walk  at  a  spot  where  the  stream 
descended  in  a  deep  green  dell  from  the  mountains,  with  a 
succession  of  falls  ;  the  dell  so  deep  that  the  sun  could  not 
reach  the  water,  which  lay  every  now  and  then  resting  in 
deep  rocky  pools,  so  beautifully  clear,  that  nothing  but  strong 
prudence  prevented  us  from  bathing  in  them ;  the  banks  of 
the  dell,  all  turf;  and  magnificent  chestnuts  varied  with  rocks, 
and  the  broad  lake,  bright  in  the  sunshine,  stretched  out 
before  us. 

II.      TOUK   IN    SCOTLAND. 

August  9, 1826. 

The  cheapness  of  education  is  certainly  a  great  thing  for 
Scotland ;  and  the  new  Edinburgh  Academy  promises  to  be 
as  economical  as  the  High  School.  They  are  both  day 
schools ;  and  parents  mostly,  therefore,  reside  in  Edinburgh 
whilst  their  children  are  at  school.  About  fourteen,  youths 
enter  at  college,  and  at  twenty-one  they  enter  on  their  profes- 
sions, at  least  those  of  Law  and  Physic ;  but  at  college  they 
board  at  home,  or  with  some  relation,  or  in  some  cheap  board- 
ing-house ;  thus  the  expenses  are  limited  to  the  mere  fees  for 
attendance  on  lectures,  which  of  course  are  trifling,  but  not 
more  moderate  than  in  Oxford ;  nay,  a  pupil  at  Oxford  gets 
his  college  tuition  comparatively  cheaper,  considering  how 
much  more  an  Oxford  tutor  can  do,  and  does  commonly,  than 
a  Professor  who  merely  reads  Lectures.  The  advantages  of 
the  Edinburgh  system  are,  however,  very  considerable.  In 
many  respects  I  wish  we  could  adopt  them,  or  rather  blend 
them  with  those  points  in  which  we  are  certainly  far  superior. 
The  friendships  of  an  English  public  school  and  university 
can  rarely,  I  should  think,  be  formed  on  the  Scotch  system ; 
but  on  the  other  hand  the  domestic  affections  are  more  cher- 
ished. Jeffrey  said  that  all  nations  remarked  the  want  of 
filial  affection  in  sons  towards  their  fathers  in  England ;  the 
looking  upon  them  as  harsh  and  niggardly,  and  the  want  of 
27* 


318  LIFE   OF  DB.   ARNOLD. 

entire  love  and  confidence  towards  them,  was  peculiarly  Eng- 
lish ;  —  and  he  attributed  it  to  the  estrangement  from  home, 
and  the  habits  of  expense  which  are  at  once  generated  by  our 
system  of  education ;  the  one  loosening  the  intimacy,  and 
close  knowledge  of  one  another,  which  should  subsist  between 
father  and  son,  the  other  supplying  a  perpetual  food  for  mutual 
complaints  and  unkindness.  Assuredly  this  is  true  in  some 
measure,  and  is  an  evil  arising  out  of  our  system  of  education 
which  had  never  struck  me  before.  It  certainly  furnishes  an 
additional  reason  for  doing  everything  to  reduce  the  expenses 
of  our  system  ;  and  there  is  this  also  to  be  said  —  if  a  boy  in 
Scotland  wastes  the  advantages  given  him,  at  least  the  loss 
to  his  father  is  not  great  in  a  pecuniary  point  of  view ;  but  in 
England  a  little  fortune  is  sunk  in  a  boy's  education,  and  how 
often  is  the  fruit  returned  absolutely  nothing.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  the  most  favorable  cases,  there  can  be  no  comparison 
between  what  Oxford  and  Cambridge  can  do  for  a  man,  and 
what  he  can  gain  at  Edinburgh,  —  nor  indeed  is  the  compari- 
son quite  fair,  because  we  rarely  leave  the  University  till  a 
year  or  two  later  than  is  the  case  in  Scotland ;  and  in  the 
most  favorable  cases,  a  year  between  twenty-one  and  twenty- 
two  is  of  incalculable  benefit 

HI.      TOUR   TO   ROME   THROUGH   FRANCE   AND   ITALY. 

Paris,  March  1,  1827. 

1.  In  church  to-day  there  was  a  prayer  read  for  the  king 
and  royal  family  of  France,  but  they  were  prayed  for  simply 
in  their  personal  capacity,  and  not  as  the  rulers  of  a  great 
nation,  nor  was  there  any  prayer  for  the  French  people.     St. 
Paul's  exhortation  is  to  pray,  not  for  kings,  and  their  families, 
but  for  kings  and  all  who  are  in  authority,  "  that  we  may  lead 
a  peaceable  life  in  all  godliness  and  honesty."     So  forever 
is  this  most  pure  command  corrupted  by  servility  and  courtli- 
ness. 

Joigny,  April  6,  1827. 

2.  Sens  has  a  fine  cathedral,  with  two  very  beautiful  painted 
rose-windows  in  the  transepts,  and  a  monument  of  the  Dau- 
phin, father  to  the  present  king,  which  is  much   spoken  of. 
Here  the  cheating  of  the  blacksmiths  went  on  in  full  perfec- 
tion, and  is  really  a  very  great  drawback  to  the  pleasure  of 
travelling  in  France.     The  moment  we  stop  anywhere,  out 


APPENDIX  D.  319 

comes  a  fellow  with  his  leathern  apron,  and  goes  poking  and 
prying  about  the  carriage  in  hopes  of  finding  some  job  to  do  ; 
and  they  all  do  their  work  so  ill,  that  they  generally  never 
fail  to  find  something  left  for  them  by  their  predecessor's 
clumsiness.  Again  I  have  been  struck  with  the  total  absence 
of  all  gentlemen,  and  of  all  persons  of  the  education  and 
feelings  of  gentlemen.  I  am  afraid  that  the  bulk  of  the 
people  are  sadly  ignorant  and  unprincipled,  and  then  liberty 
and  equality  are  but  evils.  A  little  less  aristocracy  in  our 
country  and  a  little  more  here,  would  seem  a  desirable  im- 
provement ;  there  seem  great  elements  of  good  amongst  the 
people  here,  —  great  courtesy  and  kindness,  with  all  their 
cheating  and  unreasonableness.  May  He,  who  only  can,  turn 
the  hearts  of  this  people,  and  of  all  other  people,  to  the 
knowledge  and  love  of  Himself  in  His  Son,  in  whom  there 
is  neither  Englishman  nor  Frenchman,  any  more  than  Jew  or 
Greek,  but  Christ  is  all  and  in  all !  And  may  He  keep  alive 
in  me  the  spirit  of  charity,  to  judge  favorably  and  feel  kindly 
towards  those  amongst  whom  I  am  travelling ;  inasmuch  as 
Christ  died  for  them  as  well  as  for  us,  and  they  too  call  them- 
selves after  His  name. 

Approach  to  Rome,  April,  1827. 

3.  When  we  turned  the  summit  and  opened  on  the  view 
of  the  other  side,  it  might  be  called  the  first  approach  to 
Rome.  At  the  distance  of  more  than  forty  miles,  it  was  of 
course  impossible  to  see  the  town,  and  besides  the  distance 
was  hazy ;  but  we  were  looking  on  the  scene  of  the  Roman 
History ;  we  were  standing  on  the  outward  edge  of  the  frame 
of  the  great  picture,  and,  though  the  features  of  it  were  not 
to  be  traced  distinctly,  yet  we  had  the  consciousness  that  there 
they  were  before  us.  Here,  too,  we  first  saw  the  Mediter- 
ranean ;  the  Alban  hills,  I  think,  in  the  remote  distance,  and 
just  beneath  us,  on  the  left,  Soracte,  an  outlier  of  the  Apen- 
nines, which  has  got  to  the  right  bank  of  the  Tiber,  and  stands 
out  by  itself  most  magnificently.  Close  under  us,  in  front, 
was  the  Ciminian  Lake,  the  crater  of  an  extinct  volcano, 
surrounded,  as  they  all  are,  with  their  basin  of  wooded  hills, 
and  lying  like  a  beautiful  mirror  stretched  out  before  us. 
Then  there  was  the  grand  beauty  of  Italian  scenery,  the 
depth  of  the  valleys,  and  the  endless  variety  of  the  mountain 
outline,  and  the  towns  perched  up  on  the  mountain  summits, 
and  this  now  seen  under  a  mottled  sky  which  threw  an  ever 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 


varying  shadow  and  light  over  the  valley  beneath,  and  all  the 
freshness  of  the  young  spring.  We  descended  along  one  of 
the  rims  of  this  lake  to  Ronciglione,  and  from  thence  still 
descending  on  the  whole  to  Monterossi.  Here  the  famous 
Campagna  begins,  and  it  certainly  is  one  of  the  most  striking 
tracts  of  country  I  ever  beheld.  It  is  by  no  means  a  perfect 
flat,  except  between  Rome  and  the  sea ;  but  rather  like  the 
Bagshot  Heath  country  —  ridges  of  hills  with  intermediate 
valleys,  and  the  road  often  running  between  high  steep  banks, 
and  sometimes  crossing  sluggish  streams  sunk  in  a  deep  bed. 
All  these  banks  were  overgrown  with  the  broom,  now  in  full 
flower ;  and  the  same  plant  was  luxuriant  everywhere.  There 
seemed  no  apparent  reason  why  the  country  should  be  so  des- 
olate ;  the  grass  was  growing  richly  everywhere,  there  was 
no  marsh  anywhere  visible,  but  all  looked  as  fresh  and  healthy 
as  any  of  our  chalk  downs  in  England.  But  it  is  a  wide  wil- 
derness ,  no  villages,  scarcely  any  houses,  and  here  and  there 
a  lonely  ruin  of  a  single  square  tower,  which  I  suppose  used 
to  serve  as  strong-holds  for  men  and  cattle  in  the  plundering 
warfare  of  the  middle  ages.  It  was  after  crowning  the  top 
of  one  of  these  lines  of  hills,  a  little  on  the  Roman  side  of 
Baccano,  at  five  minutes  after  six,  according  to  my  watch, 
that  we  had  the  first  view  of  Rome  itself.  I  expected  to  see 
St.  Peter's  rising  above  the  line  of  the  horizon  as  York  Min- 
ster does,  but  instead  of  that,  it  was  within  the  horizon,  and 
so  was  much  less  conspicuous,  and,  only  a  part  of  the  dome 
being  visible  from  the  nature  of  the  ground,  it  looked  mean 
and  stumpy.  Nothing  else  marked  the  site  of  the  city,  but 
the  trees  of  the  gardens  about  it,  sunk  by  the  distance  into 
one  dark  mass,  and  the  number  of  white  villas,  specking  the 
opposite  bank  of  the  Tiber  for  some  little  distance  above  the 
town,  and  then  suddenly  ceasing.  But  the  whole  scene  that 
burst  upon  our  view,  when  taken  in  all  its  parts,  was  most  in- 
teresting. Full  in  front  rose  the  Alban  hills,  the  white  villas 
on  their  sides  distinctly  visible  even  at  that  distance,  which 
was  more  than  thirty  miles.  On  the  left  were  the  Apennines, 
and  Tivoli  was  distinctly  to  be  seen  on  the  summit  of  its 
mountain,  on  one  of  the  lowest  and  nearest  points  of  the 
chain.  On  the  right  and  all  before  us  lay  the  Campagna, 
whose  perfectly  level  outline  was  succeeded  by  that  of  the 
sea,  which  was  scarcely  more  so.  It  began  now  to  get  dark, 
and,  as  there  is  hardly  any  twilight,  it  was  dark  soon  after 
we  left  La  Storta,  the  last  post  before  you  enter  Rome.  The 


APPENDIX  D.  321 

idr  blew  fresh  and  cool,  and  we  had  a  pleasant  drive  over  the 
remaining  part  of  the  Campagna  till  we  descended  into  the 
valley  of  the  Tiber,  and  crossed  it  by  the  Milvian  bridge. 
About  two  miles  further  on  we  reached  the  walls  of  Rome, 
and  entered  by  the  Porta  del  Popolo. 

Rome,  April,  1827. 

4 After  dinner  Bunsen  called  for  us  in  his  car- 
riage and  took  us  to  his  house  first  on  the  Capitol,  the  differ- 
ent windows  of  which  command  the  different  views  of  ancient 
and  modern  Rome.  Never  shall  I  forget  the  view  of  the 
former ;  we  looked  down  on  the  Forum,  and  just  opposite 
were  the  Palatine  and  the  Aventine,  with  the  ruins  of  the 
palac^  of  the  Caesars  on  the  one,  and  houses  intermixed  with 
gardens  on  the  other.  The  mass  of  the  Colosseum  rose 
beyond  the  Forum,  and,  beyond  all,  the  wide  plain  of  the 
Campagna  to  the  sea.  On  the  left  rose  the  Alban  hills 
bright  in  the  setting  sun,  which  played  full  upon  Frascati 
and  Albano,  and  the  trees  which  edge  the  lake  ;  and,  further 
away  in  the  distance,  it  lit  up  the  old  town  of  Lavicum. 
Then  we  descended  into  the  Forum,  the  light  fast  fading 
away  and  throwing  a  kindred  soberness  over  the  scene  of  ruin. 
The  soil  has  risen  from  rubbish  at  least  fifteen  feet,  so  that 
no  wonder  that  the  hills  look  lower  than  they  used  to  do, 
having  been  never  very  considerable  at  the  first.  There  it 
was,  one  scene  of  desolation,  from  the  massy  foundation-stones 
of  the  Capitoline  Temple,  which  were  laid  by  Tarquinius  the 
Proud,  to  a  single  pillar  erected  in  honor  of  Phocas,  the 
Eastern  Emperor,  in  the  fifth  century.  What  the  fragments 
of  pillars  belonged  to,  perhaps  we  never  can  know ;  but  that 
I  think  matters  little.  I  care  not  whether  it  was  a  Temple  of 
Jupiter  Stator,  or  the  Basilica  Julia,  but  one  knows  that  one 
is  on  the  ground  of  the  Forum,  under  the  Capitol,  the  place 
where  the  tribes  assembled,  and  the  orators  spoke ;  the  scene, 
in  short,  of  all  the  internal  struggles  of  the  Roman  people. 
We  passed  on  to  the  Arch  of  Titus.  Amongst  the  reliefs,  there 
is  the  figure  of  a  man  bearing  the  golden  candlestick  from  the 
Temple  of  Jerusalem  as  one  of  the  spoils  of  th£  triumph. 
Yet  He  who  abandoned  His  visible  and  local  Temple  to  the 
hands  of  the  heathen  for  the  sins  of  His  nominal  worshippers, 
nas  taken  to  Him  His  great  power  and  has  gotten  Him  glory 
by  destroying  the  idols  of  Rome  as  He  had  done  the  idols  of 
Babylon  ;  and  the  golden  candlestick  burns  and  shall  burn 


322  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

with  an  everlasting  light,  while  the  enemies  of  His  holy  name, 
Babylon,  Rome,  or  the  carcass  of  sin  in  every  land  which  the 
eagles  of  His  wrath  will  surely  find  out,  perish  forever  from 
before  Him.  We  return  to  our  inn  to  dress,  and  then  went 
again  to  Bunsen's  evening  party.  We  came  home  about 
eleven ;  I  wrote  some  Journal,  and  went  to  bed  soon  after 
twelve.  Such  was  my  first  day  in  Rome ;  and  if  I  were  to 
leave  it  to-morrow,  I  should  think  that  one  day  was  well 
worth  the  journey.  But  you  cannot  tell  how  poor  all  the 
objects  of  the  North  of  Italy  seem  in  comparison  with  what 
I  find  here  ;  I  do  not  mean  as  to  scenery  or  actual  beauty,  but 
hi  interest  When  I  leave  Rome  I  could  willingly  sleep  all 
the  way  to  Laleham ;  that  so  I  might  bring  home  my  recol- 
lection of  this  place  "  unmixed  with  baser  matter." 

May  2, 1827. 

5 After  dinner  we  started  again  in  our  carriage 

to  the  Ponte  Molle,  about  two  miles  out  of  Rome.  All  the 
way  the  road  runs  under  a  steep  and  cliffy  bank,  which  is  the 
continuation  of  the  Collis  Hortulorum  in  Rome  itself,  and 
which  turns  off  at  the  Ponte  Molle,  and  forms  the  boundary 
of  the  Tiber  for  some  way  to  the  northward,  the  cliffs,  how- 
ever, being  succeeded  by  grass  slopes.  On  the  right  bank, 
after  crossing  the  Monte  Molle,  the  road  which  we  followed 
ran  southwest  towards  St.  Peter's  and  the  Vatican,  between 
the  Tiber  and  the  Ponte  Mario.  The  Monte  Mario  is  the 
highest  point  of  the  same  line  of  hills,  of  which  the  Vatican 
and  Janiculum  form  parts :  it  is  a  line  intersected  with  many 
valleys  of  denudation,  making  several  curves,  and  as  it  were 
little  bays  and  creeks  in  it,  like  the  hills  on  the  right  bank  of 
the  Thames  behind  Chertsey,  which  coming  forward  at  St. 
Anne's,  fall  back  in  a  very  irregular  line  behind  Stroud  and 
Thorpe  Green,  and  then  come  forward  again  with  a  higher 
and  steeper  side  close  to  the  Thames  at  Cooper's  Hill.  The 
Monte  Mario  is  like  Cooper's  Hill,  the  highest,  boldest,  and 
most  prominent  part  of  the  line ;  it  is  about  the  height  and 
steepness  too  of  Cooper's  Hill,  and  has  the  Tiber  just  at  the 
foot  of  it,  like  the  Thames  at  Anchorwick.  To  keep  up  the 
resemblance  there  is  a  sort  of  a  terrace  at  the  top  of  the 
Monte  Mario  planted  with  cypresses,  and  a  villa,  though 
dilapidated,  crowns  the  summit,  as  also  at  our  old  friend  above 
Egham.  Here  we  stood,  on  a  most  delicious  evening,  the 
ilex  and  the  gum-cistus  in  great  profusion  about  us,  the  slope 


APPENDIX  D.  323 

below  full  of  olives  and  vines,  the  cypresses  over  our  heads, 
and  before  our  eyes  all  that  one  has  ever  read  of  in  Roman 
History  —  the  course  of  the  Tiber  between  the  low  hills  that 
bound  it,  coming  down  from  Fidense,  and  receiving  the  Allia 
and  the  Anio ;  beyond,  the  Apennines,  the  distant  and  higher 
summits  still  quite  white  with  snow;  in  front,  the  Alban 
hills  ;  on  the  right,  the  Campagna  to  the  sea,  and  just  beneath 
us  the  whole  length  of  Rome,  ancient  and  modern  —  St. 
Peter's  and  the  Colosseum  rising  as  the  representatives  of 
each  —  the  Pantheon,  the  Aventine,  the  Quirinal,  all  the 
well-known  objects  distinctly  laid  before  us.  One  may  safely 
say  that  the  world  cannot  contain  many  views  of  such  mingled 
beauty  and  interest  as  this. 

6 From  the  Aventine  we  again  visited  the  Colos- 
seum, which  I  admired  most  exceedingly,  but  I  cannot  de- 
scribe its  effect.  Then  to  the  Church  of  St.  John  at  the 
Lateran  gate,  before  which  stands  the  highest  of  the  Egyptian 
obelisks,  brought  by  Constantine  to  Rome.  Near  to  this 
Church  also  is  the  Scala  Santa,  or  pretended  staircase  of 
Pilate's  house  at  Jerusalem.  It  is  cased  with  wood,  and 
people  may  only  ascend  to  it  on  their  knees,  as  I  saw  several 
persons  doing.  Then  we  went  to  St.  Maria  Maggiore,  to 
Maria  degli  Angeli  at  the  baths  of  Diocletian,  and  from 

thence  I  was  deposited  again  at .    I  care  very  little  for  the 

sight  of  their  churches,  arid  nothing  at  all  for  the  recollection 
of  them.  St.  John  at  the  Lateran  is,  I  think,  the  finest ;  and 
the  form  of  the  Greek  Cross  at  St.  Maria  degli  Angeli  is 
much  better  for  these  buildings  than  that  of  the  Latin.  But 
precious  marbles,  and  precious  stones,  and  gilding,  and  rich 
coloring,  are  to  me  like  the  kaleidoscope,  and  no  more ;  and 
these  churches  are  almost  as  inferior  to  ours,  in  my  judgment, 
as  their  worship  is  to  ours  I  saw  these  two  lines  painted  on 
the  wall  in  the  street  to-day,  near  an  image  of  the  Virgin  :  — 

"  Chi  vuole  in  morte  aver  Gesu  per  Padre, 
Onori  in  vita  la  sua  Santa  Madre." 

I  declare  I  do  not  know  what  name  of  abhorrence  can  be 
too  strong  for  a  religion  which,  holding  the  very  bread  of  life 
in  its  hands,  thus  feeds  the  people  with  poison.  I  say  "  the 
bread  of  life ; "  for  in  some  things  the  indestructible  virtue  of 
Christ's  Gospel  breaks  through  all  their  pollutions  of  it ;  and 
I  have  seen  frequent  placards  also  —  but  printed  papers,  not 
printed  on  the  walls,  and  therefore,  perhaps,  the  work  of  some 
individual.  "  Iddio  ci  vede.  Eternita."  This  is  a  sort 


324  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

of  seed  scattered  by  the  wayside,  which  certainly  would  not 
have  been  found  in  heathen  Rome. 

7 I  fear  that  our  countrymen,  and  especially  our 

unmarried  countrymen,  who  live  long  abroad,  are  not  in  the 
best  possible  moral  state,  however  much  they  may  do  in  sci- 
ence and  literature  ;  which  comes  back  to  my  old  opinion, 
that  such  pursuits  will  not  do  for  a  man's  main  business,  and 
that  they  must  be  used  in  subordination  to  a  clearly-perceived 
Christian  end,  and  looked  upon  as  of  most  subordinate  value, 
or  else  they  become  as  fatal  as  absolute  idleness.  In  fact,  the 
house  is  spiritually  empty,  so  long  as  the  pearl  of  great  price 
is  not  there,  although  it  may  be  hung  with  all  the  decorations 
of  earthly  knowledge.  But,  in  saying  this  I  do  not  allude  to 

,  but  to  a  class ;  I  heard  him  say  nothing  amiss  except 

negatively  ;  and  I  have  great  reason  to  thank  him  for  his 
civility.  But  it  is  so  delightful  to  meet  with  a  man  like  Bun- 
sen,  with  whom  I  know  that  all  is  right,  that  perhaps  the  con- 
trast of  those  with  whom  I  cannot  feel  the  same  certainty  is 
the  more  striking. 

8.  We  found  the  Savignys  at  home,  and  I  had  some  con- 
siderable talk  with  Savigny  about  the  Roman  Law,  which  was 
satisfactory  to  me  on  this  account,  —  that  I  found  that  I  knew 
enough  of  the  subject  to  understand  what  its  difficulties  were, 
and  that  in  conversing  with  the  most  profound  master  of  the 
Roman  Law  in  Europe,  I  found  that  I  had  been  examining 
the  right  sources  of  information.     He  thought  that  the  Tribes 
voted  upon  laws  down  to  a  late  period  of  the  Emperor's  gov- 
ernment. 

Rome,  May,  1827. 

9.  Lastly,  we  ascended  to  the  top  of  the  Colosseum,  Bun- 
sen  leaving  us  at  the  door,  to  go  home  ;  and  I  seated  myself 

with ,  just  above  the  main  entrance,  towards  the  Forum, 

and  there  took  my  farewell  look  over  Rome.     It  was  a  deli- 
cious evening,  and  everything  was  looking  to  advantage  ;  the 
huge  Colosseum  just  under  me,  —  the  tufts  of  ilex  and  aliter- 
nus,  and  other  shrubs  that  fringe  the  ruins  everywhere  in  the 
lower  parts,  —  while  the  outside  wall,  with  its  top  of  gigantic 
stones,  lifts  itself  high  above,  and  seems  like  a  mountain  bar- 
rier of  bare  rock,  inclosing  a  green  and  varied  valley, —  I  sat 
and  gazed  upon  the  scene  with  an  intense  and  mingled  feel- 
ing.    The  world  could  show  nothing   grander ;    it  was  one 
which  for  years  I  had  longed  to  see,  and  I  was  now  looking 


APPENDIX  D.  325 

at  it  for  the  last  time.  I  do  not  think  you  will  be  jealous, 
dearest,  if  I  confess  that  I  could  not  take  leave  of  it  without 
something  of  regret.  Even  with  you  and  our  darlings,  I 
would  not  live  out  of  our  dear  country,  to  which  I  feel  bound 
alike  by  every  tie  of  duty  and  affection ;  and  to  be  here  a 
vagrant,  without  you,  is  certainly  very  far  from  happiness. 
Not  for  an  instant  would  I  prolong  my  absence  from  Laleham, 
yet  still  I  feel,  at  leaving  Rome,  very  differently  from  what  I 
ever  felt  at  leaving  any  other  place  not  more  endeared  than 
this  is  by  personal  ties  ;  and  when  I  last  see  the  dome  of  St. 
Peter's,  I  shall  seem  to  be  parting  from  more  than  a  mere 
town  full  of  curiosities,  where  the  eye  has  been  amused,  and 
the  intellect  gratified.  I  never  thought  to  have  felt  thus 
tenderly  towards  Rome ;  but  the  inexpressible  solemnity  and 
beauty  of  her  ruined  condition  has  quite  bewitched  me ;  and 
to  the  latest  hour  of  my  life  I  shall  remember  the  Forum,  the 
surrounding  hills,  and  the  magnificent  Colosseum. 

In  a  Ferry-boat  on  the  Po.    May  16, 1827. 

10.  Here  we  are  in  our  carriage  in  a  great  boat,  with  an- 
other carriage  alongside  of  us,  in  which  is  a  priest  of  some 
dignity,  as  I  imagine,  with  two  servants.  The  Po  has  been 
uncivil  to  us,  and  first  of  all  broke  down  the  bridge  of  Pla- 
centia,  and  obliged  us  to  go  round  by  Pavia,  and  then  has 
made  such  a  flood  that  we  cannot  land  at  the  usual  place,  but 
are  going  to  have  a  voyage  of  nearly  a  mile  up  the  river. 
The  scene  is  very  Trentish ;  the  wide  and  very  dirty  river ; 
the  exceedingly  rich  and  fat  plains  ;  the  church  towers  on  the 
banks,  and  the  exceeding  clumsiness  of  the  boats,  —  so  unlike 
those  of  the  Thames.  Meanwhile  I  gain  some  time  for  Jour- 
nal, which  I  am  in  great  need  of.  The  whole  of  yesterday 
morning,  from  nine  to  half-past  two,  I  spent  in  the  Library  at 
Parma,  collating  Thucydides,  At  a  little  before  four  we  left 
Parma,  and  at  a  little  before  nine  we  reached  Placentia.  I 
must  not  omit  to  mention  the  remarkable  beauty  of  the  fire- 
flies last  night,  just  as  we  entered  Placentia.  The  wide 
meadows  before  we  reached  the  town  were  sparkling  with  the 
shifting  light  of  hundreds  of  these  little  creatures,  whose 
irregular  movements  and  perpetual  change  resembled  a  fairy 
dance,  in  which  each  elf  carried  a  lamp  in  his  hand,  alter- 
nately lighting  and  extinguishing  it  by  magic  power.  I  never 
saw  them  before  in  such  abundance.  The  change  of  climate 
VOL.  ii.  28 


326  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

from  Rome  is  very  perceptible.  We  have  no  olives  here,  and 
few  figs,  and  the  flowers  in  the  fields  and  hedges  are  mostly 
the  same  as  our  own :  though  I  still  see  our  garden  gladiolus 
in  the  corn-fields,  and  the  dog-roses  are  in  full  bloom.  From 
Placentia  here  we  have  been  again  on  old  ground,  —  still  the 
great  plain  of  Lombardy,  which  we  have  now  followed  for  a 
hundred  and  twenty  miles  without  one  hill,  —  and  we  are 
going  to  follow  it  for  fifty  more  on  the  other  bank  of  the  Po 
from  here  to  Como.  Its  richness  is  apparently  unequal,  and 
about  Placentia  it  seems  much  inferior  to  what  it  is  about 
Bologna,  Modena,  and  Reggio.  We  have  just  crossed  about 
three  miles  of  the  Sardinian  dominions  in  our  way  to  the  Po : 
and  for  this  little  bit  we  have  again  had  trouble  with  the 
Custom-House  about  my  books :  for  it  seems  the  Sardinian 
government  is  afraid  of  light  as  well  as  its  neighbors.  There 
has  evidently  been  a  great  deal  of  rain  here  lately,  and  all 
the  streams  from  the  Apennines  are  full.  We  should  not 
have  been  able  to  cross  the  Trebbia  had  there  not  been  a 
bridge  built  about  two  years  since,  and  the  same  may  be  said 
of  the  Taro.  These  increasing  facilities  of  communication 
are  certainly  very  creditable  to  the  governments,  and  of  good 
omen  for  the  people ;  as  they  may  tend  to  give  them  some 
activity  of  mind,  and  some  knowledge  of  what  is  going  on  at 
some  little  distance  from  their  own  homes  ;  and  thus  they  may 
in  time  be  fit  for  liberty.  But  I  cannot  think  that  any  good 
and  wise  man  can  regret  the  failure  of  the  Piedmontese  and 
Neapolitan  revolutions  of  1821.  It  would  be  a  hopeless  state 
of  things  to  see  the  half-informed  and  thoroughly  unprincipled 
lawyers,  merchants,  and  literati  of  Italy  put  into  the  possession 
of  power.  With  Prussia  the  case  is  totally  different ;  but  the 
king  there  has  done  so  much  good,  that  we  may  hope  favora- 
bly of  what  he  will  do  to  make  his  people  independent  of  the 
personal  character  of  their  sovereign.  Successors  like  him- 
self he  cannot  reckon  on ;  and  the  true  magnanimity  of  a 
sovereign  is  to  resign  the  exclusive  power  of  doing  good  to 
his  people,  and  to  be  content  that  they  should  do  it  to  them- 
selves. By  the  way,  I  suppose  it  was  this  sentiment  in  my 

Life  of  Trajan  that found  so  shocking ;  but  be  it  so  ;  at 

that  rate  I  cannot  write  what  will  not  be  shocking,  —  and 
most  ashamed  I  should  be  so  to  write  as  that  such  men  should 
approve  of  it.  The  Po  has  been  now  civil  enough  to  redeem 
his  incivility,  so  I  shall  part  with  him  on  good  terms. 


APPENDIX   D.  327 

On  the  mountain  side,  above  the  Lake  of  Como  (second  visit). 

May  19,  1827. 

11.  I  am  now  seated,  dearest  M ,  very  nearly  in  the 

same  spot  from  which  I  took  my  sketch  with in  1825  ; 

and  I  am  very  glad  to  be  here  again,  for  certainly  the  steam- 
boat had  given  no  adequate  impression  of  the  beauties  of  this 
lake,  and  I  did  not  wish  to  go  away  from  it  —  admiring  it  less 
than  I  did  the  last  time.  But  now,  seated  under  its  chestnut 
woods,  and  looking  down  upon  its  clear  water,  it  appears  as 
beautiful  as  ever.  Again  I  see  the  white  sails  specking  it,  and 
the  cliff  running  down  sheer  into  it,  and  the  village  of  Tomo 
running  out  into  it  on  its  little  peninsula,  and  Blevio  nearer  to 
me,  and  the  houses  sometimes  lining  the  water's  edge,  and  some- 
times clustering  up  amidst  the  chestnuts.  How  strange  to  be 
sitting  twice  within  two  years  in  the  same  place,  on  the  shores 
of  an  Italian  lake,  and  to  be  twice  describing  the  selfsame 
scenery.  But  now  I  feel  to  be  taking  a  final  leave  of  it,  and 
to  be  viewing  the  inexpressible  beauty  of  these  lakes  for  the 
last  time.  And  I  am  fully  satisfied ;  —  for  their  images  will 
remain  forever  in  my  memory,  and  one  has  something  else 
to  do  in  life  than  to  be  forever  running  about  after  objects  to 
delight  the  eye  or  the  intellect.  "  This,  I  say,  brethren  ;  the 
time  is  short ; "  and  how  much  is  to  be  done  in  that  time ! 
May  God,  who  has  given  me  so  much  enjoyment,  give  me 
grace  to  be  duly  active  and  zealous  in  His  service ;  that  I 
may  make  this  relaxation  really  useful,  and  hallow  it  as  His 
gift,  through  Jesus  Christ.  May  I  not  be  idle  or  selfish,  or 
vainly  romantic ;  but  sober,  watchful,  diligent,  and  full  of  love 
to  my  brethren. 

IV.      TOUR   IN   GERMANY. 

June  9, 1828. 

1.  Early  this  morning  we  left  Aix,  and  came  on  to  Cologne. 
The  country,  which  about  Aix  is  very  pretty,  soon  degenerates 
into  great  masses  of  table-land,  divided  at  long  intervals  by 
the  valley  of  the  Roer,  in  which  is  Juliers,  or  Julich,  where 
we  breakfasted,  and  that  of  the  Ernst,  in  which  is  Bergheim. 
All  this  was  dull  enough,  but  the  weather  meantime  was 
steadying  and  settling  itself,  and  the  distances  were  getting 
very  clear,  and  at  last  our  table-land  ended  and  sank  down 
into  a  plain,  and  from  the  edge  of  it,  as  we  began  to  descend, 
we  burst  upon  the  view  of  the  valley  of  the  Rhine,  the  city 


328  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

of  Cologne,  with  all  its  towers,  the  Rhine  itself  distinctly  seen 
at  the  distance  of  seven  miles,  —  the  Seven  Mountains  above 
Bonn  on  our  right,  and  a  boundless  sweep  of  the  country 
beyond  the  Rhine  in  front  of  us.  To  be  sure,  it  was  a  strik- 
ing contrast  to  the  first  view  of  the  valley  of  the  Tiber  from 
the  mountain  of  Viterbo ;  but  the  Rhine  in  mighty  recollec- 
tions will  vie  with  anything,  and  this  spot  was  particularly 
striking :  Cologne  was  Agrippa's  colony  inhabited  by  Ger- 
mans, brought  from  beyond  the  river,  to  live  as  the  subjects 
of  Rome ;  the  river  itself  was  the  frontier  of  the  empire,  — 
the  limit  as  it  were  of  two  worlds,  that  of  Roman  laws  and 
customs,  and  that  of  German.  Far  before  us  lay  the  land  of 
our  Saxon  and  Teutonic  forefathers,  —  the  land  uncorrupted 
by  Roman  or  any  other  mixture  ;  the  birthplace  of  the  most 
moral  races  of  men  that  the  world  has  yet  seen,  —  of  the 
soundest  laws,  —  the  least  violent  passions,  and  the  fairest 
domestic  and  civil  virtues.  I  thought  of  that  memorable  * 
defeat  of  Varus  and  his  three  legions,  which  forever  confined 
the  Romans  to  the  western  side  of  the  Rhine,  and  preserved 
the  Teutonic  nation  —  the  regenerating  element  in  modern 
Europe  —  safe  and  free. 

On  the  Elbe,  a  little  before  sunset.    July,  1828. 

2.  We  are  now  near  Pirna,  that  is,  near  the  end  of  the 
Saxon  Switzerland ;  the  cliffs  which  here  line  the  river  on 
both  sides  —  a  wall  of  cliff  rising  out  of  wood,  and  crowned 
with  wood  —  will  in  a  very  short  time  sink  down  into  plains, 
or  at  the  best  into  gentle  slopes,  and  the  Elbe  will  wind 
through  one  unvaried  flat  from  this  point  till  it  reaches  the 
sea.  There  is  to  me  something  almost  affecting  in  the  strik- 
ing analogy  of  rivers  to  the  course  of  human  life,  and  my 
fondness  for  them  makes  me  notice  it  more  in  them  than  in 
any  other  objects  in  which  it  may  exist  equally.  The  Elbe 
rises  in  plains;  it  flows  through  plains  for  some  way;  then 
for  many  miles  it  runs  through  the  beautiful  scenery  which 
we  have  been  visiting,  and  then  it  is  plain  again  for  all  the 
rest  of  its  course.  Even  yet,  dearest,  and  we  have  reached 
our  middle  course  in  the  ordinary  run  of  life,  how  much  more 
favored  have  we  been  than  this  river ;  for  hitherto  we  have 
gone  on  through  nothing  but  a  fair  country,  yet  so  far  like 

*  This,  and  the  defeat  of  the  Moors  by  Charles  Martel,  he  used  to  rank 
as  the  two  most  important  battles  in  the  world. 


APPENDIX  D.  329 

the  Elbe,  that  the  middle  has  been  the  loveliest.  And  what 
if  our  course  is  henceforth  to  run  through  plains  as  dreary  as 
those  of  the  Elbe,  for  we  are  now  widely  separated,  and  I 
may  never  be  allowed  to  return  to  you  ;  and  I  know  not  what 
may  happen,  or  may  even  now  have  happened  to  you.  Then 
the  river  may  be  our  comfort,  for  we  are  passing  on  as  it 
passes  ;  and  we  are  going  to  the  bosom  of  that  Being  who 
sent  us  forth,  even  as  the  rivers  return  to  the  sea,  the  general 
fountain  of  all  waters.  Thus  much  is  natural  religion,  —  not 
surely  to  be  despised  or  neglected,  though  we  have  more 
given  us  than  anything  which  the  analogy  of  nature  can 
parallel.  For  He  who  trod  the  sea,  and  whose  path  is  in 
the  deep  waters,  has  visited  us  with  so  many  manifestations 
of  His  grace,  and  is  our  God  by  such  other  high  titles,  greater 
than  that  of  creation,  that  to  him  who  puts  out  the  arm  of 
faith,  and  brings  the  mercies  that  are  round  him  home  to 
his  own  particular  use,  how  full  of  overflowing  comfort  must 
the  world  be,  even  when  its  plains  are  the  dreariest  and  lone- 
liest !  Well  may  every  one  of  Christ's  disciples  repeat  to  Him 
the  prayer  made  by  His  first  twelve,  "  Lord  increase  our 
faith  !  "  and  well  may  He  wonder  —  as  the  Scripture  applies 
such  a  term  to  God  —  that  our  faith  is  so  little.  Be  it 
strengthened  in  us,  dearest  wife,  and  hi  our  children,  that 
we  may  be  all  one,  now  and  evermore,  in  Christ  Jesus. 

V.       TOTTR   IN    SWITZERLAND    AND   NORTH    OF   ITALT. 

July  16,  1829. 

1.  How  completely  is  the  Jura  like  Cithaeron,  with  its  vdirat 
and  \cip.£>i>es,  and  all  that  scenery  which  Euripides  has  given 
to  the  life  in  the  Bacchae.  Immediately  beyond  the  post- 
house,  at  S.  Cergues,  the  view  opens,  —  one  that  I  never  saw 
surpassed,  nor  can  I  ever ;  for  if  America  should  afford 
scenes  of  greater  natural  beauty,  yet  the  associations  cannot 
be  the  same.  No  time,  to  civilized  man,  can  make  the  Andes 
like  the  Alps ;  another  deluge  alone  could  place  them  on  a 
level.  There  was  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  with  its  inimitable 
and  indescribable  blue,  —  the  whole  range  of  the  mountains 
which  bound  its  southern  shore,  —  the  towns  that  edge  its 
banks,  —  the  rich  plain  between  us  and  its  waters,  —  and  im- 
mediately around  us,  the  pines  and  oaks  of  the  Jura,  and  its 
deep  glens,  and  its  thousand  flowers, — out  of  which  we  looked 
on  this  paradise. 

28* 


330  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

Genoa,  July  29,  1829. 

2.  Once  again  I  am  on  the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean.     I 
saw  it  only  from  a  distance  when  I  was  last  in  Italy,  but  now 
I  am  once  more  on  its  very  edge,  and  have  been  on  it  and  in 
it.     True  it  is,  that  the  Mediterranean  is  no  more  than  a  vast 
mass  of  salt  water,  if  people  choose  to  think  it  so  ;  but  it  is  also 
the  most  magnificent  thing  in  the  world,  if  you  choose  to  think 
it  so  ;  and  it  is  as  truly  the  latter  as  it  is  the  former.     And  as 
the  pococurante  temper  is  not  the  happiest,  and  that  which 
can  admire  heartily  is  much  more  akin  to  that  which  can  love 
heartily,  6  8e  dya7rS>v,  6tca  fj8r)  opoios,  —  so,  my  children,  I  wish 
that  if  ever  you  come  to  Genoa,  you  may  think  the  Mediter- 
ranean to  be  more  than  any  common  sea,  and  may  be  unable 
to  look  upon  it  without  a  deep  stirring  of  delight. 

On  the  Lake  of  Como,  August  3,  1829. 

3.  I  fancy  how  delightful  it  would  be  to  bring  one's  family 
and  live  here  ;  but,  then,  happily,  I  think  and  feel  how  little 
such  voluptuous  enjoyment  would  repay  for  abandoning  the 
line  of  usefulness  and  activity  which  I  have  in  England,  and 
how  the  feeling  myself  helpless  and  useless,  living  merely  to 
look  about  me,  and  training  up  my  children  in  the  same  way, 
would  soon  make  all  this  beauty  pall,  and  appear  even  weari- 
some.    But  to  see  it  as  we  are  now  doing,  in  our  moments  of 
recreation,  to  strengthen  us  for  work  to  come,  and  to  gild  with 
beautiful  recollections  our  daily  life  of  home  duties  ;  —  this, 
indeed,  is  delightful,  and  is  a  pleasure  which  I  think  we  may 
enjoy  without  restraint.     England  has  other  destinies  than 
these  countries,  —  I  use  the  word  in  no  foolish  or  unchristian 
sense,  —  but  she  has  other  destinies ;  her  people  have  more 
required  of  them ;    with  her  full  intelligence,  her   restless 
activity,  her  enormous  means  and  enormous  difficulties ;  her 
pure  religion  and  unchecked  freedom ;  her  form  of  society, 
with  so  much  of  evil,  yet  so  much  of  good  in  it,  and  such  im- 
mense power  conferred  by  it ;  —  her  citizens,  least  of  all  men, 
should  think  of  their  own  rest  or  enjoyment,  but  should  cher- 
ish every  faculty  and  improve  every  opportunity  to  the  utter- 
most, to  do  good  to  themselves  and  to  the  world.     Therefore 
these  lovely  valleys,  and  this  surpassing  beauty  of  lake  and 
mountain,  and  garden  and  wood,  are  least,  of  all  men,  for  us  to 
covet ;  and  our  country,  so  entirely  subdued  as  it  is  to  man's 
uses,  with  its  gentle  hills  and  valleys,  its  innumerable  canals 
and  coaches,  is  best  suited  as  an  instrument  of  usefulness. 


APPENDIX  D.  331 

Zurich,  August  7, 1829. 

4.  Once  more  I  must  recross  the  Alps,  to  Chiavenna,  which 
certainly  is  amongst  the  most  extraordinary  places  I  ever  be- 
held. Its  situation  resembles  that  of  Aosta  and  Bellinzona, 
and  I  think,  if  possible,  it  surpasses  them  both.  The  moun- 
tains by  which  it  is  enclosed  are  formed  of  that  hard  dark 
rock  which  is  so  predominant  in  the  lower  parts  of  the  Alps 
on  the  Italian  side,  and  which  gives  them  so  decided  a  char- 
acter. Above  Chiavenna  their  height  is  unusually  great,  and 
their  magnificence,  both  in  the  ruggedness  of  their  form  and 
the  steepness  of  their  cliffs,  as  in  the  gigantic  size  of  the 
fragments  which  they  have  thrown  down  into  the  valley,  and 
in  the  luxuriance  of  their  chestnut  woods,  is  of  the  very  high- 
est degree.  The  effect  too  is  greater,  because  the  valley  is  so 
much  narrower  than  that  of  the  Ticino  at  Bellinzona,  or  of  the 
Dorea  Baltea  at  Aosta ;  in  fact  the  stream  is  rather  a  torrent 
than  a  river,  but  full  and  impetuous,  and  surprisingly  clear, 
although  the  snowy  Alps  from  which  it  takes  its  source  rise 
at  a  very  little  distance;  but  their  substance  apparently  is 
harder  than  that  of  the  Alps  about  Mont  Blanc,  and  the  tor- 
rents, therefore,  are  far  purer  than  the  Dorea  or  the  Arve. 
In  the  very  midst  of  the  town  of  Chiavenna,  now  covered 
with  terrace  walls  and  vineyards  to  its  very  summit,  stands 
an  enormous  fragment  of  rock,  once  detached  from  the  neigh- 
boring mountains,  and  rising  to  the  height,  I  suppose,  of  seventy 
or  eighty  feet.  It  was  formerly  occupied  by  a  fortress  built 
on  its  top  by  the  Spaniards,  in  their  wars  in  the  north  of  Italy ; 
but  it  all  looks  quiet  and  peaceful  now.  Miss  H.,  her  brother, 
and  I  wandered  about  before  dinner  to  take  a  scramble  amidst 
the  rocks  and  chestnuts.  We  followed  a  path  between  the 
walls  of  the  vineyards,  wide  enough  for  one  person  only,  till 
it  led  us  out  amid  the  rocks,  and  then  continued  to  wind  about 
amongst  them,  leading  to  the  little  grotto-like  dwellings  which 
were  scattered  amongst  them,  or  built  on  to  the  enormous  frag- 
ments which  cover  the  whole  mountain  side.  On  the  tops  of 
these  fragments,  however,  as  well  as  between  them,  a  vege- 
tation of  fine  grass  has  contrived  to  establish  itself,  and  the 
chestnuts  twist  their  knotty  roots  about  in  every  direction  till 
they  find  some  fissure  by  which  they  can  strike  down  into  the 
soil.  It  is  impossible,  therefore,  to  picture  anything  more 
beautiful  than  a  scramble  about  these  mountains.  You  are  in 
•a  wood  of  the  most  magnificent  trees,  shaded  from  the  sun,  yet 
not  treading  on  mouldering  leaves  or  damp  earth,  but  on  a 


332  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

carpet  of  the  freshest  spring  turf,  rich  with  all  sorts  of  flowers. 
You  have  the  softness  of  an  upland  meadow  and  the  richness 
of  an  English  park,  yet  you  are  amidst  masses  of  rock,  now 
rearing  their  steep  sides  in  bare  cliffs,  now  hung  with  the  senna 
and  the  broom,  now  carpeted  with  turf,  and  only  showing  their 
existence  by  the  infinitely  varied  form  which  they  give  to  the 
ground,  the  numberless  deep  dells,  and  green  amphitheatres, 
and  deliciously  smooth  platforms,  all  caused  by  the  ruins  of 
the  mountain  which  have  thus  broken  and  studded  its  surface, 
and  are  yet  so  mellowed  by  the  rich  vegetation  which  time 
has  given  them,  that  they  now  only  soften  its  character. 

This  to  me  unrivalled  beauty  of  the  chestnut  woods  was 
very  remarkable  in  two  or  three  scenes  which  we  saw  the 
next  day ;  one  before  we  set  out  for  the  Splugen,  when  we 
drove  a  little  way  up  the  valley  of  Chiavenna,  to  see  a  water- 
fall. The  fall  was  beautiful  in  itself,  as  all  waterfalls  must  be, 
but  its  peculiar  charm  was  this,  that  instead  of  falling  amidst 
copsewood,  as  the  falls  in  Wales  and  the  north  of  England 
generally  do,  or  amidst  mere  shattered  rocks,  like  that  fine 
one  in  the  Valais  near  Martigny,  —  here,  on  the  contrary,  the 
water  fell  over  a  cliff  of  black  rock  into  a  deep  rocky  basin, 
and  then  as  it  flowed  down  in  its  torrent  it  ran  beneath  a 
platform  of  the  most  delicious  grass,  on  which  the  great  chest- 
nut-trees stood  about  as  finely  as  in  an  English  park,  and 
rose  almost  to  a  level  with  the  top  of  the  fall,  while  the  turf 
underneath  them  was  steeped  in  a  perpetual  dew  from  the 
spray.  The  other  scene  was  on  the  road  to  Isola,  on  the  way 
to  the  Splugen,  in  the  valley  of  the  Lina.  It  is  rather  a  gorge 
than  a  valley,  so  closely  do  the  mountains  approach  one  an- 
other, while  the  torrent  is  one  succession  of  falls.  Yet  jusi 
in  one  place,  where  the  road  by  a  succession  of  zigzags  had 
wound  up  to  the  level  of  the  top  of  the  falls,  and  where  the 
stream  was  running  for  a  short  space  as  gentle  and  as  limpid 
as  one  of  the  clear  rapid  chalk  streams  of  the  South  of  Hamp- 
shire, the  turf  sloped  down  gently  from  the  road  to  the  stream, 
the  great  chestnut-trees  spread  their  branches  over  it,  and  just 
on  its  smooth  margin  was  a  little  chapel,  with  those  fresco 
paintings  on  its  walls  which  are  so  constant  a  remembrance  of 
Italy.  Across  the  stream  there  was  the  same  green  turf  and 
the  same  chestnut  shade,  and  if  you  did  not  lift  up  your  eyes 
high  into  the  sky,  to  notice  the  barrier  of  insurmountable  cliff 
and  mountain  which  surrounded  you  on  each  side,  you  would 
have  had  no  other  images  before  you  than  those  of  the  softest 
and  most  delicate  repose,  and  of  almost  luxurious  enjoyment- 


APPENDIX  D. 

Champagne,  August  12,  1829- 

Between  Brienne  and  Arcis  the  valley  was  full  of  villages, 
and  they  were  large  and  comfortable-looking,  almost  every 
cottage  having  a  good  garden.  These  valleys  in  Champagne 
are,  on  a  small  scale,  what  Egypt  is  on  a  large  scale ;  highly 
cultivated,  and  with  a  crowded  population  along  the  streams, 
because  all  the  country  on  either  side  of  the  valley  is  an  un- 
inhabitable desert.  Arcis  is  a  very  poor  town,  and  from  thence 
to  Chalons  it  was  a  country  not  to  be  paralleled,  I  suppose,  in 
civilized  Europe,  except  it  be  in  Castile  in  Spain.  A  waste 
it  was  not,  for  it  was  all  cultivated,  but  the  dreariness  of  a 
boundless  view,  all  brown  and  dry,  corn-fields  either  cleared  or 
ready  for  the  harvest,  without  a  tree  or  a  green  field,  or  a 
house,  was  exceedingly  striking,  and  Champagne  is  worth 
seeing  for  the  very  surpassing  degree  of  its  ugliness.  They 
are,  however,.in  several  places,  beginning  to  plant  firs,  and  if 
this  system  be  followed,  the  aspect  as  well  as  the  value  of  the 
country  will  be  greatly  improved.  Chalons,  at  a  distance 
looks  well ;  and  the  green  valley  and  fine  stream  of  the  Marne 
are  quite  delicious  to  eyes  accustomed  to  one  brown  extent  of 
plain  or  table-land  during  thirty  miles. 

VI.      TOUR   IN   NORTH    OF   ITALY. 

Chamberri,  July  17, 1830. 

1.  The  state  of  feeling  displayed  by ,  and  the  rest 'of 

the  party,  filled  me  with  thoughts  that  might  make  a  volume. 
It  was,  I  fear,  certainly  unchristian  and  ultra-liberal ;  —  look- 
ing to  war  with  very  little  dismay,  but  anxious  to  spread 
everywhere  what  they  considered  liberal  views,  "  les  Idees  du 

Siecle,"  and  so  intolerant  of  anything  old,  that made  it 

a  matter  of  reproach  to  our  Government  that  Guernsey  and 
Jersey  still  retained  their  old  Norman  laws.  They  were 
strongly  An ti- Anglican,  regarding  England  as  the  great  enemy 
to  all  improvement  all  over  the  world.  Now  as  to  mending 

and ,  that  is  not  our  concern ;  but  for  ourselves,  it 

did  fill  me  with  earnest  thoughts  of  the  fearful  conflict  that 
must  soon  take  place  between  the  friends  and  enemies  of  the 
old  system  of  things,  and  the  provoking  intermixture  of  evil 
in  the  latter,  which  makes  it  impossible  to  sympathize  wholly 
in  their  success.  I  was  struck,  too,  with  the  total  isolation  of 
England  from  the  European  world.  We  are  considered  like 
the  inhabitants  of  another  planet,  feared  perhaps,  and  respected 


334  LIFE  OF  DB.   ARNOLD. 

in  many  points,  but  not  loved,  and  in  no  respect  understood  or 
sympathized  with.  And  how  much  is  our  state  the  same  with 
regard  to  the  Continent.  How  little  do  we  seem  to  know,  or 
to  value  their  feelings,  —  how  little  do  we  appreciate  or  imi- 
tate their  intellectual  progress Is  it  never  to  be  that 

men  shall  be  at  once  Christians  and  really  liberal  and  wise : 
and  shall  the  improvement  of  our  social  condition  always  be 
left  to  unhallowed  hands  to  effect  it?  I  conclude  with  the 
lament  of  the  Persian  noble :  —  €x$iVr'  68vvr)  TroXXa  tppo 
fjaj8fvos  KpaTffiv ;  or  rather,  I  should  say,  it  would  be,  t' 
oSvi/j;,  did  we  not  believe  that  there  was  One  in  whom  infinite 
wisdom  was  accompanied  with  infinite  power ;  and  whose  will 
for  us  is  that  we  should  follow  after  what  is  good  ourselves, 
but  should  not  wonder  or  be  disappointed  if  "  another  take 
the  city  and  it  be  called  after  his  name."  There  is  a  want  of 
moral  wisdom  among  the  Continental  Liberals,  as  among  their 
opponents  both  abroad  and  at  home,  which  makes  one  tremble 

to  follow  such  guides.    I  gave  my  Thucydides  to ;  would 

that  he  could  read  it  and  profit  by  it ;  for,  sad  to  say,  Thucydi- 
des seems  to  me  to  have  been  not  only  a  fairer  and  an  abler 
man,  but  one  of  a  far  sounder  moral  sense,  and  deeper  prin- 
ciple, than  the  modern  Liberals.  Between  what  a  Scylla  and 
Charybdis  does  the  state  of  society  seem  to  be  wavering,  the 
brute  ignorance  and  coarse  commonplace  selfishness  of  the 
Tories,  and  the  presumption  and  intellectual  fever  of  the 
Liberals.  "  To  the  Jews  a  stumbling-block,  and  to  the  Greeks 
foolishness ;  but  to  them  who  believe,  both  Jews  and  Greeks, 
CHRIST,  the  power  of  God,  and  the  wisdom  of  God."  'A.p.})it 

val  fpxov  Kvpte  'l^croC. 

Varese,  July  24, 1830. 

2.  We  arrived  here,  at  the  Star  inn,  the  post,  about  a  quar- 
ter after  five,  got  a  hasty  dinner,  and and  I  were  in  our 

carriage,  or  rather  in  a  light  cabriolet,  hired  for  the  purpose, 
a  little  after  six,  to  drive  about  two  miles  out,  to  the  foot  of 
the  mountain  of  S.  Maria.  At  the  foot  of  the  mountain  we 
began  to  walk,  the  road  being  a  sort  of  paved  way  round  the 
mountain  in  great  zigzags,  and  passing  by  in  the  ascent  about 
twenty  chapels  or  arches,  introductory  to  the  one  at  the  sum- 
mit. Over  the  first  of  these  was  written,  "  Her  foundations 
are  upon  the  holy  hills ; "  and  other  passages  of  Scripture 
were  written  over  the  succeeding  ones.  In  one  of  these  chap- 
els, looking  in  through  the  window,  we  saw  that  it  was  full  of 
waxen  figures  as  large  as  h'fe,  representing  the  Apostles  on 


APPENDIX  D.  335 

the  day  of  Pentecost ;  and  in  another  there  was  a  sepulchre 
hewn  out  of  the  rock,  and  the  Apostles  coming,  as  on  the 
morning  of  the  Resurrection,  "  to  see  the  place  where  Jesus 
lay."  I  confess,  these  waxen  figures  seemed  to  me  anything 
but  absurd ;  from  the  solemnity  of  the  place  altogether,  and 
from  the  goodness  of  the  execution,  I  looked  on  them  with  no 
disposition  to  laugh  or  to  criticise.  But  what  I  did  not  expect 
was  the  exceeding  depth  and  richness  of  the  chestnut  shade, 
through  which  the  road  partially  ran,  only  coming  out  at 
every  turning  to  the  extreme  edge  of  the  mountain,  and  so 
commanding  the  view  on  every  side.  But  when  we  got  to  the 
summit  we  saw  a  path  leading  up  to  the  green  edge  of  a  cliff 
on  the  mountain  above,  and  we  thought  if  we  could  get  there 
we  should  probably  see  Lugano.  Accordingly,  on  we  walked  ; 
till  just  at  sunset  we  got  out  to  the  crown  of  the  ridge,  the 
brow  of  an  almost  precipitous  cliff,  looking  down  on  the  whole 
mountain  of  S.  Maria  del  Monte,  which  on  this  side  presented 
nothing  but  a  large  mass  of  rock  and  cliff,  a  perfect  contrast 
to  the  rich  wood  of  its  other  side.  But  neither  S.  Maria  del 
Monte,  nor  the  magnificent  view  of  the  plain  of  Lombardy  — 
one  mass  of  rich  verdure,  enlivened  with  its  thousand  white 
houses  and  church-towers  —  were  the  objects  which  we  most 
gazed  upon.  We  looked  westward  full  upon  the  whole  range 
of  mountains,  behind  which,  in  a  cloudless  sky,  the  sun  had 
just  descended.  It  is  utterly  idle  to  attempt  a  description  of 
such  a  scene.  I  counted  twelve  successive  mountain  outlines 
between  us  and  the  farthest  horizon ;  and  the  most  remote  of 
all,  the  high  peaks  of  the  Alps,  were  brought  out  strong  and 
dark  in  the  glowing  sky  behind  them,  so  that  their  edge  seemed 
actually  to  cut  it.  Immediately  below  our  eyes,  plunged  into 
a  depth  of  chestnut  forest,  varied  as  usual  with  meadows  and 
villages,  and  beyond,  embosomed  amidst  the  nearer  mountains, 
lay  the  Lake  of  Lugano.  As  if  everything  combined  to  make 
the  scene  perfect,  the  mountain  on  which  we  stood  was  cov- 
ered, to  my  utter  astonishment,  with  the  Daphne  Cneorum, 
and  I  found  two  small  pieces  in  flower  to  ascertain  the  fact, 
although  generally  it  was  out  of  bloom.  We  stood  gazing  on 
the  view,  and  hunting  about  to  find  the  Daphne  in  flower,  till 
the  shades  of  darkness  were  fast  rising ;  then  we  descended 
from  our  height,  went  down  the  mountain  of  S.  Maria,  refresh- 
ing ourselves  on  the  way  at  one  of  the  delicious  fountains  which 
are  made  beside  the  road,  regained  our  carriage  at  the  foot  of 
the  mountain ,  and,  though  we  had  left  our  coats  and  neck- 


336  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

cloths  at  Varese  before  we  started,  and  were  hot  through  and 
through  with  the  skirmish,  yet  the  soft  air  of  these  summer 
nights  had  nothing  chilly  in  it,  and  we  were  only  a  little  re- 
freshed by  the  coolness  during  our  drive  home.  I  now  look 
out  on  a  sky  bright  with  its  thousand  stars,  and  have  observed 
a  little  summer  lightning  behind  the  mountains.  If  any  one 
wishes  for  the  perfection  of  earthly  beauty,  he  should  see  such 
a  sunset  as  we  saw  this  evening  (from  the  mountain  above  S. 
Maria  del  Monte. 

Mule  track  above  the  Lake  of  Como,  under  the  chestnuts, 
July  25,  1830.     (Third  visit) 

3.  Once  more,  dearest  M ,  for  the  third  time  seated 

under  these  delicious  chestnuts,  and  above  this  delicious  lake, 
with  the  blue  sky  above,  and  the  green  lake  beneath,  and 
Monte  Rosa  and  the  S.  Gothard,  and  the  Simplon  rearing 
their  snowy  heads  in  the  distance.  It  would  be  a  profanation 
of  this  place  to  use  it  for  common  journal ;  I  came  out  here 

with partly  to  enjoy  the  association  which  this  lake  in  a 

peculiar  manner  has  connected  with  it  to  my  mind.  Last 
year  it  did  not  signify  that  I  was  not  here,  for  you  were  with 
me ;  but,  with  you  absent,  I  should  have  grieved  to  have 
visited  Como,  and  not  have  come  to  this  sweet  spot  I  see 
no  change  in  the  scenery  since  I  was  last  here  in  1827,  and  I 
feel  very  little,  if  any,  in  myself.  Yet  for  me,  "  summer  is 
now  ebbing ;  "  since  I  was  here  last,  I  have  passed  the  middle 
point  of  man's  life,  and  it  is  hardly  possible  that  I  should  be 
here  again  without  feeling  some  change.  If  we  were  here 
with  our  dear  children,  that  itself  would  be  a  change,  and  I 
hardly  expect  to  be  again  on  this  very  spot,  without  having 
them.  But  what  matters,  or  rather  what  should  matter  change 
or  no  change,  so  that  the  decaying  body  and  less  vigorous  in- 
tellect were  but  accompanied  with  a  more  thriving  and  more 
hopeful  life  of  the  spirit  ?  It  is  almost  awful  to  look  at  the 
overwhelming  beauty  around  me,  and  then  think  of  moral 
evil ;  it  seems  as  if  heaven  and  hell,  instead  of  being  separated 
by  a  great  gulf  from  one  another,  were  absolutely  on  each 
other's  confines,  and  indeed  not  far  from  every  one  of  us. 
Might  the  sense  of  moral  evil  be  as  strong  in  me  as  my  de- 
light in  external  beauty,  for  in  a  deep  sense  of  moral  evil, 
more  perhaps  than  in  anything  else,  abides  a  saving  knowledge 
of  God !  It  is  not  so  much  to  admire  moral  good ;  that  we 
may  do,  and  yet  not  be  ourselves  conformed  to  it ;  but  if  we 


APPENDIX  D.  337 

really  do  abhor  that  which  is  evil,  not  the  persons  in  whom 
evil  resides,  but  the  evil  which  dwelleth  in  them,  and  much 
more  manifestly  and  certainly  to  our  own  knowledge,  in  our 
own  hearts,  —  this  is  to  have  the  feeling  of  God  and  of  Christ, 
and  to  have  our  spirit  in  sympathy  with  the  Spirit  of  God. 
Alas  !  how  easy  to  see  this  and  say  it,  —  how  hard  to  do  it  and 
to  feel  it !  Who  is  sufficient  for  these  things  ?  No  one,  but 
he  who  feels  and  really  laments  his  own  insufficiency.  God 
bless  you,  my  dearest  wife,  and  our  beloved  children,  now 
and  evermore,  through  Christ  Jesus. 

July  29, 1830. 

4.  The  Laquais  de  Place,  at  Padua,  was  a  good  one  of  his 
kind,  and,  finding  that  his  knowledge  of  French  was  much 
less  than  mine  of  Italian,  if  that  be  possible,  we  talked  wholly 
in  Italian.  He  said  that  the  taxes  were  now  four  times  as 
heavy  as  under  the  old  Venetian  government,  or  under  the 
French.  He  himself,  when  a  young  man,  had  volunteered 
into  the  republican  army,  after  the  overthrow  of  the  Venetian 
aristocracy  in  1797,  and  had  fought  at  Marengo,  where  he 
was  wounded.  He  said  they  had  in  Padua  a  Casa  di  Rico- 
vero,  or  asylum  for  the  infirm  and  infant  poor ;  and  here  also, 
he  said,  relief  was  given  to  men  in  full  age  and  vigor,  when 
they  were  thrown  out  of  employment.  I  asked  how  it  was 
supported.  He  said,  chiefly  by  bequests ;  for  whenever  a 
man  of  property  died,  the  priest  who  attended  him  never  failed 
to  suggest  to  him  that  he  should  leave  something  to  the  Casa 
di  Ricovero ;  and  he  seemed  to  think  it  almost  a  matter  of 
course  that  such  a  recommendation  should  be  attended  to.  It 
seems  then,  that  in  the  improved  state  of  society,  the  influence 
of  the  Catholic  clergy  is  used  for  purposes  of  general  charity, 
and  not  for  their  own  advantage ;  and  who  would  not  wish 
that  our  clergy  dared  to  exercise  something  of  the  same  influ- 
ence over  our  higher  classes,  and  could  prevent  that  most  un- 
christian spirit  of  family  selfishness  and  pride,  by  which  too 
many  wills  of  our  rich  men  are  wholly  dictated  ?  But  our 
Church  bears,  and  has  ever  borne,  the  marks  of  her  birth. 
The  child  of  regal  and  aristocratical  selfishness  and  unprin- 
cipled tyranny,  she  has  never  dared  to  speak  boldly  to  the 
great,  but  has  contented  herself  with  lecturing  to  the  poor.  "  I 
will  speak  of  thy  testimonies  even  before  kings,  and  will  not 
be  ashamed,"  is  a  text  which  the  Anglican  Church,  as  a 
29  V 


338  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

national  institution,  seems  never  to  have  caught  the  spirit  of. 
Folly,  and  worse  than  folly  is  it,  to  think  that  preaching  what 
are  called  orthodox  doctrines  before  the  great  is  really  preach- 
ing to  them  the  Gospel.  Unless  the  particular  conclusions 
which  they  should  derive  from  those  doctrines  be  impressed 
upon  them;  unless  they  are  warned  against  the  particular 
sins  to  which  they  are  tempted  by  their  station  in  society,  and 
urged  to  the  particular  duties  which  their  political  and  social 
state  requires  of  them,  the  Gospel  will  be  heard  without 
offence,  and,  therefore,  one  may  almost  say,  without  benefit. 
Of  course  I  do  not  mean  offence  at  the  manner  in  which  it  is 
preached,  nor  offence  indeed,  at  all  in  the  common  sense  of  the 
word ;  but  a  feeling  of  soreness  that  they  are  touched  by  what 
they  hear,  a  feeling  which  makes  the  conscience  uneasy,  be- 
cause it  cannot  conceal  from  itself  that  its  own  practice  is 
faulty. 

Latsch,  August  3,  1830. 

5.  In  the  market-place  at  Meran  there  is  a  large  statue  of 
the  Virgin,  to  commemorate  two  deliverances  from  the  French, 
in  1796  and  in  1799,  when  the  enemy  on  one  occasion  came 
as  far  as  Botzen,  and  on  the  other  as  far  as  Glurns  and  Eyers. 
But  this  is  so  exactly  a  thing  after  the  manner  of  Herodotus, 
that  I  must  for  a  few  lines  borrow  his  language. 

"Ear?;**  8e  eV  p.eo~rj  777  dyoprj  ayoX/xa  £v\ivov  'A0f)irr}s  d\f£iKaKov  ' 
e<rri  8e  roayaX/ta  KOI  ypa(prj  Kal  epya>  flKao~p*vov  Kal  777  p.tv  K«pa\fj 
TTJS  Beov  TTfpiKffTai  OT((f)avos  daTepcoi>,  777  8e  OTT]\r}  TroXXa  eViye'ypa- 
TTTCU,  rrjv  atTirjv  TOV  dvaOrnMTOS  d7ro8fiKVVfi,eva.  *Hv  yap  irort  ptyas 
dvd  ndo-av,  a>s  ttTTflv,  ~Evpa>irr}v  rrdXe/xos'  o~v)(va.l  8e  tytvovro  TroXewi/ 
avacrrdtrtes,  en  Se  /xaXXoi/  dypu>v  Sijaxrfis  Kal  dv6pu>7ru>v  <povoi.  'Ev 
p.fv  2>v  Tovrw  TO)  7roXe'/io)  /leyitrra  8^  Trdvrav  (pya  dTTf8t£avro  ol  FaXd- 
T«U  •  (cat  1ro\vs  firfxeiTo  ird(rr)<Ti  1770-1  Trfpia>KT)fj£VT)(ri  ir6\i(Tiv  6  an' 
avrcjv  KLv8vvos-  OVTOI  ol  FaXdrat  Avcrrpidvois  fTro\tfju>vv  •  TOV  8e 
Avorpidvaiv  ftao~i\eos  TO  TipcaXiKov  tdvos  TJV  VTTTJKOOV.  Ol  fit  Aixrrpi- 
avoi  Tro\\fj<Tiv  rj8r)  pdxjlo~i  vu(T)dti>TfS,  KUKUS  eTratr^ov  Kal  irtpl  TT/S 
e'avrcbi/  dp)(T)s  ^8r)  KadiaraTo  6  dyu>v.  Kal  TTJS  p.fv  TtpwXi'So?  yei/i/aiW 
i>irfp€fid\ovTO  ol  eVt^wpioi,  ir\r)6tt.  Se  v7Tfp^a\\6/j.fvoi  TOVS  FaXdras  ts 
TTJV  X<j*pr)v  fo-fSfKovro.  OvTOi  fie  TO.  p.(v  aXXa  drjtoO-avTfS  ft  TTJV  TUIV 
Mfpdvwv  OIIK  d(piKOvro,  tire  o~wrv)(ij]  TIVI,  fiTf  TTJS  6eov  OVTU>  8iaOfi- 
crrjs*  'AXXd  ye  01  Mepavoi  fs  dflov  TI  dva(f)f points  TO  Trpijy^ia,  jcal  ov 
Tv-^rj  paXXof  fj  6e<av  evvoiq  aotdrivai  Tore  f)yovp.fvoi,  TO  re  ayaXfia  rrj 
6f<o  dv(6r)Kav,  Kal  en  fs  TO  vvv  atel,  us  5t'  OVTTJV  irfpiyiyvopevut,  810- 


APPENDIX  D.  339 

August  11,  1830. 

My  dearest  M ,  this  book  [a  new  MS.  volume  of  the 

journal]  ought  surely  to  begin  with  good  omens,  as  it  begins 
on  our  wedding-day.  How  much  of  happiness  and  of  cause 
for  the  deepest  thankfulness  is  contained  in  the  recollections 
of  this  day  ;  for  in  the  ten  years  that  have  elapsed  since  our 
marriage,  there  has  been  condensed,  I  suppose,  as  great  a 
portion  of  happiness,  with  as  little  alloy,  as  ever  marked  any 
ten  years  of  human  existence.  It  is  impossible  to  look  back, 
and  to  look  forwards,  without  some  feelings  of  awe  and  appre- 
hension ;  for  the  future  cannot  be  more  full  of  earthly  happi- 
ness than  the  past,  and,  in  all  human  probability,  must,  in  one 
way  or  another,  be  less  so.  Perhaps  it  is  best  that  it  should 
be  ;  for  one  cannot  help  feeling  the  enormous  disproportion 
between  desert  and  blessing ;  and  though  this  is  not  a  true 
feeling,  for  desert  has  nothing  to  do  with  it,  yet  the  unfitness 
for  blessings  is  a  real  and  just  consideration ;  a  sickly  state 
cannot  bear  such  delicious  fare ;  a  constitution  that  has  so 
much  to  struggle  with  should  be  braced  with  a  harder  disci- 
pline for  the  conflict.  And  yet  how  vain  would  any  such  con- 
siderations be  to  alleviate  the  actual  misery  of  a  change : 
then  nothing  could,  I  think,  tend  so  much  to  support  me  as 
the  simple  consideration  of  Christ's  example.  He  pleased 
not  Himself,  nor  entered  into  His  rest  till  He  had  gone 
through  the  worst  extremity  of  evil.  Perhaps,  however,  the 
best  way  of  taking  such  anniversaries  as  this  is,  not  by  specu- 
lating on  the  future,  or  on  how  we  could  bear  a  change,  but 
by  remembering  now,  in  our  season  of  happiness,  that  it  is  but 
an  earnest  of  more,  if  we  receive  it  with  true  thankfulness, 
and  that,  let  come  what  will,  all  will  work  to  good  if,  while  it 
is  day,  we  labor  to  work  the  work  that  is  set  before  us.  May 
I  remember  this ;  and  remember,  too,  that  God's  work  is  to 
believe  on  Him  whom  He  hath  sent :  that  is,  not  only  to  do 
my  earthly  business  honestly  and  zealously,  but  to  do  it  as  a 
Christian,  humbly  and  piously,  —  not  trusting  in  any  degree 
in  myself,  but  laboring  for  that  strength  which  is  made  most 
perfect  in  him  who  feels  his  own  weakness.  God  bless  u; 

both,  my  dearest  M ,  and  our  dearest  children,  through 

Christ  Jesus. 

[This  account  of  his  visit  to  Niebuhr,  being  written  in  the 
carriage  on  the  journeys  of  the  subsequent  days,  was  inter- 
spersed with  remarks  on  the  route,  which  have  been  omitted.] 


340  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

August,  1830. 

7 In  person  Niebuhr  is  short,  not  above  five  feet 

six,  or  seven,  I  should  think,  at  the  outside  ;  his  face  is  thin, 
and  his  features  rather  pointed,  his  eyes  remarkably  lively 
and  benevolent  His  manner  is  frank,  sensible,  and  kind, 
and  what  Bunsen  calls  the  Teutonic  character  of  benevolence 
is  very  predominant  about  him,  yet  with  nothing  of  what 
Jeffrey  called,  on  the  other  hand,  the  beer-drinking  heaviness 
of  a  mere  Saxon.  He  received  me  very  kindly,  and  we 
talked  in  English,  which  he  speaks  very  well,  on  a  great  num- 
ber of  subjects.  I  was  struck  with  his  minute  knowledge  of 
the  text  and  MSS.  of  Thucydides,  and  with  his  earnest  hope, 
several  times  repeated,  that  we  might  never  do  away  with 
the  system  of  classical  education  in  England.  —  I  told  him  of 

's  nonsense  about  Guernsey  and  Jersey,  at  which  he  was 

very  much  entertained,  but  said  that  it  did  not  surprise  him. 
He  said  that  he  was  now  much  more  inclined  to  change  old 
institutions  than  he  had  been  formerly,  —  but  "  possibly,"  said 
he,  "  I  may  see  reason  in  two  or  three  years  to  go  back  more 
to  my  old  views."  Yet  he  anticipated  no  evil  consequences 
to  the  peace  of  Europe,  even  from  a  Republic  in  France,  for 
he  thought  that  all  classes  of  people  had  derived  benefit  from 
experience. 

Niebuhr  spoke  with  great  admiration  of  our  former  great 
men,  Pitt  and  Fox,  &c.,  and  thought  that  we  were  degener- 
ated ;  and  he  mentioned  as  a  very  absurd  thing  a  speech  of 

,  who  visited  him  at  Bonn,  that  if  those  men  were  now 

to  come  to  life,  they  would  be  thought  nothing  of  with  our 
present  lights  in  political  economy.  Niebuhr  asked  me  with 
much  interest  about  my  plans  of  religious  instruction  at 
Rugby,  and  said  that  in  their  Protestant  schools  the  business 
began  daily  with  the  reading  and  expounding  a  chapter  in 
the  New  Testament.  He  spoke  of  the  Catholics  in  Prussia, 
as  being  very  hypocritical,  that  is,  having  no  belief  beyond 
outward  profession.  Bunsen,  he  said,  was  going  to  publish  a 
collection  of  German  hymns  for  the  Church  service.  Their 
literature  is  very  rich  in  hymns  in  point  of  quantity,  no  fewer 
than  36,000,  and  out  of  these  Bunsen  is  going  to  collect  the 
best.  Niebuhr's  tone  on  these  matters  quite  satisfied  me,  and 
made  me  feel  sure  that  all  was  right  He  spoke  with  great 
admiration  of  Wordsworth's  poetry.  He  often  protested  that 
he  was  no  revolutionist,  but  he  said,  though  he  would  have 
given  a  portion  of  his  fortune  that  Charles  X.  should  have  gov- 


APPENDIX  D.  341 

erned  constitutionally,  and  so  remained  on  the  throne,  "  yet," 
said  he,  "  after  what  took  place,  I  would  myself  have  joined 
the  people  in  Paris,  that  is  to  say,  I  would  have  given  them 
my  advice  and  direction,  for  I  do  not  know  that  I  should  have 
done  much  good  with  a  musket."  —  Niebuhr  spoke  of  Mr. 
Pitt,  that  to  his  positive  knowledge,  from  unpublished  State 
Papers,  which  he  had  seen,  Pitt  had  remonstrated  most 
warmly  against  the  coalition  at  Pilnitz,  and  had  been  unwill- 
ingly drawn  into  the  war  to  gratify  George  III.  —  My  account 
of  Niebuhr's  conversation  has  been  sadly  broken,  and  I  am 
afraid  I  cannot  recollect  all  that  I  wish  to  recollect.  He  said 
that  he  once  owed  his  life  to  Louis  Bonaparte,  who  interceded 
with  Napoleon  when  he  was  going  to  have  Niebuhr  shot ; 
and  promised  Niebuhr  that,  if  he  could  not  persuade  his 
brother,  he  would  get  him  twenty-four  hours'  notice,  and 
furnish  him  with  the  means  of  escaping  to  England.  After 
this  Niebuhr  met  Louis  at  Rome,  and  he  said  that  he  did  not 
well  know  how  to  address  him ;  but  he  thought  that  the  service 
which  he  had  received  from  him  might  well  excuse  him  for 
addressing  him  as  "  Sire."  He  asked  me  into  the  drawing- 
room  to  drink  tea,  and  introduced  me  to  his  wife.  Niebuhr's 
children  also  were  in  the  room,  four  girls  and  a  boy,  with  a 
young  lady,  who,  I  believe,  was  their  governess.  They  struck 
me  as  very  nice  mannered  children,  and  it  was  very  delight- 
ful to  see  Niebuhr's  affectionate  manner  to  them  and  to  his 
wife.  While  we  were  at  tea,  there  came  in  a  young  man 
with  the  intelligence  that  the  Duke  of  Orleans  had  been  pro- 
claimed king,  and  Niebuhr's  joy  at  the  news  was  quite  enthu- 
siastic. He  had  said  before,  that  in  the  present  state  of 
society,  a  Republic  was  not  to  his  taste,  and  that  he  earnestly 
hoped  that  there  would  be  no  attempt  to  revive  it  in  France. 
He  went  home  with  me  to  my  inn,  and  when  I  told  him  what 
pleasure  it  would  give  me  to  see  any  of  his  friends  in  Eng- 
land, he  said  that  there  was  a  friend  of  his,  a  nobleman,  who  was 
thinking  of  sending  his  son  to  be  educated  in  England.  The 
father  and  mother,  he  said,  were  pious  and  excellent  people, 
and  devoted  to  the  improvement  of  their  tenantry  in  every 
respect,  and  they  wished  their  son  to  be  brought  up  in  the 
same  views.  And  Niebuhr  said  that  if  this  young  man  came 
to  England,  he  should  be  very  happy  to  avail  himself  of  my 
offer.  And  he  expressed  his  hope  that  you  and  I  might  be  at 
Bonn  again  some  day  together,  and  that  he  might  receive  us 
under  his  own  roof.  He  expressed  repeatedly  his  great  affec- 

29* 


842  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

tion  for  England,  saying  that  his  father  had  accustomed  him 
from  a  boy  to  read  the  English  newspapers,  in  order  that  he 
might  early  learn  the  opinions  and  feelings  of  Englishmen. 
On  the  whole,  I  was  most  delighted  with  my  visit,  and  thought 
it  altogether  a  great  contrast  to  the  fever  and  excitement 

of .     The  moral  superiority  of  the  German  character  in 

this  instance  was  very  striking :  at  the  same  time  I  owe  it  to 
the  French  to  say,  that  now  that  I  have  learnt  the  whole  story  of 
the  late  revolution,  I  am  quite  satisfied  of  the  justice  of  their 
cause,  and  delighted  with  the  heroic  and  admirable  manner 
in  which  they  have  conducted  themselves.  How  different 
from  even  the  beginning  of  the  first*  Revolution,  and  how  sat- 
isfactory to  find  that  in  this  instance  the  lesson  of  experience 
seems  not  to  have  been  thrown  away. 

August,  1830. 

8.  The  aspect  of  Germany  is  certainly  far  more  pleasing 
than  that  of  France,  and  the  people  more  comfortable.  I 
cannot  tell  whether  it  really  is  so,  but  I  cannot  but  wonder  at 
Guizot  placing  France  at  the  head  of  European  civilization : 
he  means  because  it  is  superior  to  Germany  in  social  civiliza- 
tion, and  to  England  in  producing  more  advanced  and  en- 
larged individual  minds.  Many  Englishmen  will  sneer  at 
this  notion,  but  I  think  it  is  to  a  certain  degree  well  founded, 
and  that  our  intellectual  eminence  in  modern  times  by  no 
means  keeps  pace  with  our  advances  in  all  the  comforts  and 
effectiveness  of  society.  And  I  have  no  doubt  that  our  mis- 
erable system  of  education  has  a  great  deal  to  do  with  it.  I 
maintain  that  our  historians  ought  to  be  twice  as  good  as 
those  of  any  other  nation,  because  our  social  civilization  is 

perfect Then,  again,  our  habits  of  active  h'fe  give 

our  minds  an  enormous  advantage,  if  we  would  work ;  but 
we  do  not,  and  therefore  the  history  of  our  own  country  is  at 
this  day  a  thing  to  be  done,  as  well  as  the  histories  of  Greece 
and  Rome.  Foreigners  say  that  our  insular  situation  cramps 
and  narrows  our  minds ;  and  this  is  not  mere  nonsense  either. 
If  we  were  not  physically  a  very  active  people,  our  disunion 
from  the  Continent  would  make  us  pretty  nearly  as  bad  as  the 
Chinese.  As  it  is,  we  are  so  distinct  in  habits  and  in  feelings, 
owing  originally  in  great  measure  to  our  insular  situation,  that 
I  remember  observing  in  1815,  that  the  English  stood  alone 
amidst  all  the  nations  assembled  at  Paris,  and  that  even  our 
fellow-subjects,  the  Hanoverians,  could  understand  and  sym- 


APPENDIX  D.  343 

pathize  with  the  French  better  than  with  us.  Now  it  is  very 
true  that  by  our  distinctness  we  have  gained  very  much,  — 
more  than  foreigners  can  understand.  A  thorough  English 
gentleman,  —  Christian,  manly,  and  enlightened,  —  is  more,  I 
believe,  than  Guizot  or  Sismondi  could  comprehend ;  it  is  a 
finer  specimen  of  human  nature  than  any  other  country,  I 
believe,  could  furnish.  Still,  it  is  not  a  perfect  specimen  by  a 
great  deal ;  and  therefore  it  will  not  do  to  contemplate  our- 
selves only,  or,  contenting  ourselves  with  saying  that  we  are 
better  than  others,  scorn  to  amend  our  institutions  by  compar- 
ing them  with  those  of  other  nations.  Our  travellers  and  our 
exquisites  imitate  the  outside  of  foreign  customs  without  dis- 
crimination, just  as  in  the  absurd  fashion  of  not  eating  fish 
with  a  knife,  borrowed  from  the  French,  who  do  it  because 
they  have  no  knives  fit  for  use.  But  monkeyish  imitation 
will  do  no  good ;  what  is  wanted  is  a  deep  knowledge  and 
sympathy  with  the  European  character  and  institutions,  and 
then  there  would  be  a  hope  that  we  might  each  impart  to  the 
other  that  in  which  we  are  superior. 

VII.      TOUR   IN    SCOTLAND. 

July,  1831. 

1 .  T  was  at  Church  (at  Greenock)  twice  on  Sunday,  once 
at  the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  once  at  the  Episcopal 
Chapel.  My  impressions,  received  five  years  ago,  were  again 
renewed  and  strengthened  as  to  the  merits  of  the  Presby- 
terian Church  and  our  own.  The  singing  is  to  me  delightful, 
—  I  do  not  mean  the  music,  but  the  heartiness  with  which  all 
the  congregation  join  in  it.  And  I  exceedingly  like  the  local 
and  particular  prayers  and  addresses  which  the  freedom  of 
their  services  allows  the  minister  to  use.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  people  should  be  protected  from  the  tediousness  or  dul- 
ness  of  their  minister ;  and  that  is  admirably  effected  by  a 
Liturgy,  and  especially  by  such  a  Liturgy  as  ours.  As  to  the 
repetitions  in  our  Service,  they  arise  chiefly  from  Land's 
folly  in  joining  two  services  into  one ;  but  the  repetition  of 
the  Lord's  Prayer  I  can  hardly  think  objectionable ;  not  that 
I  would  contend  for  it,  but  neither  would  I  complain  of  it. 
Some  freedom  in  the  Service  the  minister  certainly  should 
have ;  some  power  of  insertion  to  suit  the  particular  time  and 
place  ;  some  power  of  explaining  on  the  spot  whatever  is  read 
from  the  Scriptures,  which  may  require  explanation,  or  at 
any  rate  of  stating  the  context.  It  does  seem  to  me  that  tha 


344  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

reforms  required  in  our  Liturgy  and  Service  are  so  obvious, 
and  so  little  affect  the  system  itself,  that  their  long  omission  is 
doubly  blamable.  But  more  remains  behind,  and  of  far 
greater  difficulty :  —  to  make  the  Church  at  once  popular  and 
dignified,  —  to  give  the  people  their  just  share  in  its  govern- 
ment, without  introducing  a  democratical  spirit,  —  to  give  the 
Clergy  a  thorough  sympathy  with  their  flocks,  without  al- 
together lowering  their  rank  and  tone.  When  Wesley  said 
to  his  minister,  that  they  had  no  more  to  do  with  being  gentle- 
men than  with  being  dancing-masters,  TO  /zei>  op6u>s  fine,  TO  & 
ijiMpTfv.  In  Christ's  communication  with  His  Apostles  there 
is  always  a  marked  dignity  and  delicacy,  a  total  absence  of 
all  that  coarseness  and  vulgarity  into  which  Wesley's  doctrine 
would  infallibly  lead  us.  Yet  even  in  Christ,  the  Lord  and 
Master  of  His  Disciples,  there  is  a  sympathy,  which  is  a 
very  different  thing  from  condescension,  a  spirit  of  unaffected 
kindness,  and,  I  had  almost  said,  of  sociability  which  the  spirit 
of  gentlemanliness  has  doubtless  greatly  dulled  in  the  Church 
of  England.  "I  have  called  you  friends,"  is  a  text  which 
applies  to  the  Christian  minister  in  his  dealings  with  his 
brethren  and  equals,  in  an  infinitely  stronger  degree  than  it 
could  do  to  Him,  who  was  our  Lord  and  Master,  and  whose 
calling  us  brethren  was  not  of  nature,  but  out  of  the  conde- 
scension of  His  infinite  love.  And  he  who  shall  thus  far 
keep  and  thus  far  get  rid  of  the  spirit  of  gentlemanliness, 
would  go  near  to  make  the  Church  of  England  all  but  perfect, 
no  less  in  its  popularity  than  in  its  real  deserving  of  popu- 
larity, Kai  irtpl  fjitv  TOVTWV  flprja-da)  firi  ToeroOro,  ai/et/it  8<  tirl  TOV 
ava>  \6yov. 

July,  1831. 

2.  Again  (at  Glasgow)  the  Scotch  minister's  sermon  struck 
me  as  addressed  more  ad  clerum  than  ad  populum ;  and  again 
more  than  ever  I  felt  the  superiority  of  our  Service.  I  can- 
not say  how  doubly  welcome  and  impressive  I  thought  the 
Lord's  Prayer,  when  the  minister  (to  my  surprise,  by  the  way) 
used  it  before  the  sermon.  Nothing,  it  seems  to  me,  can  be 
worse  than  the  introductory  prayers  of  the  Scotch  Service, 
to  judge  from  what  I  have  hitherto  heard :  the  intercessory 
prayer  after  the  sermon  is  far  simpler,  and  there  the  dis- 
cretion given  to  the  ministers  is  often  happily  used.  But 
altogether,  taking  their  Service  as  it  is,  and  ours  as  it  is,  1 
would  far  rather  have  our  own ;  how  much  more,  therefore, 
with  the  slight  improvements  which  we  so  easily  might  introi 


APPENDIX  D.  345 

duce  —  if  only But  even  to  the  eleventh  hour  we  will 

not  reform,  and  therefore  we  shall  be  not,  I  fear,  reformed, 
but  rudely  mangled  or  overthrown  by  men  as  ignorant  in 
their  correction  of  abuses  as  some  of  us  are  in  their  main- 
tenance of  them.  Periodical  visitations  of  extreme  severity 
have  visited  the  Church  and  the  world  at  different  times,  but 
to  no  human  being  is  it  given  to  anticipate  which  will  be  the 
final  one  of  all.  Only  the  lesson  in  all  of  them  is  the  same. 
"  If  the  righteous  scarcely  be  saved,  where  shall  the  ungodly 
and  the  sinner  appear  ?  "  And  in  each  of  these  successive 
"  comings  "  of  our  Lord,  how  little  is  the  faith  which  He  has 
found  even  among  His  professed  followers  !  May  He  increase 
this  faith  in  me,  and  those  who  are  dearest  to  me,  ere  it  be  too 
late  forever! 

VIII.      TOUR   IN   FRANCE. 

Dover,  August  11,  1837. 

1.  Twenty  and  twenty-two  years  ago  I  was  backwards  and 
forwards  at  this  place,  being  then  a  young  man  with  no  wife 
or  children,  but  with  a  mother  whose  house  was  my  home, 
with  a  brother,  aunt,  and  sisters.  Ten,  eight,  and  seven  years 
ago,  I  used  to  be  also  passing  often  through  here ;  I  had  then 
lost  my  dear  brother,  and  latterly  my  dearest  mother,  and  I 
had  a  wife  and  children ;  I  had  also  a  sister  living  here  with 
her  husband  and  children.  Now,  after  another  period  of  seven 
years,  I  am  here  once  more  ;  with  no  mother  or  aunt,  with  no 
remains  left  of  my  early  home ;  my  sister  who  did  live  here 
has  lost  her  husband,  and  now  lives  at  Rugby ;  but  I  have  not 
only  my  dearest  wife  with  me,  but  —  a  more  advanced  stage 
of  life  —  three  dear  children  are  with  us,  and  their  pens  are 
all  busy  with  their  journals  like  their  mother's  and  mine.  So 
Dover  marks  very  strikingly  the  several  periods  of  my  life, 
and  shows  me  how  large  a  portion  of  my  space  here  I  have 
already  gone  through. 

Then  for  the  world  at  large.  When  I  first  came  here,  it 
was  so  soon  after  Napoleon's  downfall,  that  I  remember  hear- 
ing from  one  of  the  passengers  in  the  packet  the  first  tidings 
of  Labedoyere's  execution.  At  my  second  and  third  visits, 
the  British  army  still  occupied  the  North  of  France.  My 
second  period  of  coming  here,  from  1825  to  1830,  marked 
the  last  period  of  the  old  Bourbon  reign  in  France,  and  the 
old  Tory  reign  in  England.  When  I  first  landed  here,  it  was 


346  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

in  the  brief  interval  between  the  French  and  Belgian  Revo- 
lutions; it  was  just  after  the  triumphant  election  of  1830  in 
England,  which  overthrew  the  ministry  of  the  Duke  of  Wel- 
lington, and  led  to  the  Reform  Bill.  And  now  we  seem  to  be 
witnessing  the  revival  of  Toryism  in  England,  perhaps  of  the 
old  Bourbon  principles  in  part  of  France.  The  tide  is  turned, 
and  will  advance  no  higher  till  the  next  flood ;  let  us  only 
hope  that  its  ebb  will  not  be  violent ;  and  in  the  meanwhile 
our  neighbors  have  got  rid  of  the  white  flag,  and  we  have  got 
rid  of  the  rotten  boroughs  of  Schedule  A.  This  is  a  clear 
gain  ;  it  is  a  question  whether  the  positive  good  which  either 
of  us  have  gained,  is  equal  to  the  positive  evil  which  we  have 
destroyed;  but  still  in  the  course  of  this  world,  Seeva  the 
destroyer  is  ever  needed,  and  in  our  imperfect  state,  the  very 
deliverance  from  evil  is  a  gratification  and  a  good. 

On  Saturday  last  we  were  at  our  delicious  Westmoreland 
home,  at  that  dear  Fox  How,  which  I  love  beyond  all  other 
spots  of  ground  in  the  world,  and  expatiating  on  the  summit 
of  our  familiar  Fairfield.  There,  on  a  cloudless  sky,  we  were 
beholding  the  noble  outline  of  all  our  favorite  mountains: 
The  Old  Man,  Wetherlam,  Bow  Fell,  Sea  Fell,  Great  Gable, 
the  Langdale  Pikes,  the  Pillar,  Grassmoor,  Helvellyn,  Place 
Fell,  High  Street,  Hill  Bell ;  there  we  saw  Ulleswater  and 
Coniston,  and  our  own  Winandermere,  and  there  too  we  looked 
over  a  wide  expanse  of  sea  of  the  channel  which  divides 
England  from  Ireland.  On  Tuesday  last  we  were  at  our  dear 
Rugby  home  ;  seeing  the  long  line  of  our  battlements  and  our 
well-known  towers  backed  by  the  huge  elms  of  the  school- 
field,  which  far  overtopped  them;  and  looking  on  the  deep 
shade  which  those  same  elms,  with  their  advanced  guard  of 
smaller  trees  and  shrubs,  were  throwing  over  the  turf  of  our 
quiet  garden.  And  now,  on  Friday  morning,  we  are  at  an  inn 
at  Dover,  looking  out  on  the  castle  and  white  cliffs  which  are 
so  linked  with  a  thousand  recollections;  beholding  the  sea, 
which  is  the  highway  from  all  the  life  of  England  to  all  the 
life  of  Europe,  and  beyond  there  stretches  out  the  dim  line  of 
darker  shadow  which  we  know  to  be  the  very  land  of  France. 

And  besides,  in  this  last  week,  I  have  been  at  an  Election ; 
one  of  those  great  occasions  of  good  or  evil  which  are  so  largely 
ministered  to  Englishmen ;  an  opportunity  for  so  much  energy, 
for  so  much  rising  beyond  the  mere  selfishness  of  domestic 
interests,  and  the  narrowness  of  mere  individual  or  local  pur- 
suits ;  but  an  opportunity  also  for  every  base  and  bad  passion, 


APPENDIX  D.  347 

for  corruption,  for  fear,  for  tyranny,  for  malignity.  Such  is  an 
election,  and  such  is  all  human  life  ;  and  those  who  rail  against 
these  double-handed  appointments  of  God,  because  they  have 
an  evil  handle  as  well  as  a  good,*  may  desire  the  life  of  the 
Seven  Sleepers,  for  then  only  can  opportunities  of  evil  be 
taken  from  us,  when  we  lose  all  opportunities  of  doing  or 
of  becoming  good.  However,  even  as  an  occasion  of  evil, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  our  elections  are  like  an  inoculating  for 
a  disorder,  and  so  mitigating ;  the  party  spirit  and  the  feuds 
which  now  spend  themselves  in  bloodless  contests,  would,  if 
these  were  away,  find  a  far  more  deadly  vent ;  they  solve  that 
great  problem  how  to  excite  a  safe  and  regulated  political 
activity. 

We  also  in  the  course  of  the  week  have  been  travelling 
on  the  great  railway  from  Manchester  to  Birmingham.  The 
distance  is  ninety-five  miles,  which  we  accomplished  in  five 
hours.  Nothing  can  be  more  delightful,  as  well  as  more  con- 
venient. It  was  very  beautiful,  too,  to  be  taken,  as  it  were,  into 
the  deepest  retirement  of  the  country,  surprising  lone  farm- 
houses and  out-lying  copses  with  the  rapid  darting  by  of  a 
hundred  passengers,  yet  leaving  their  quiet  unbroken  ;  for  no 
houses  have  as  yet  gathered  on  the  line  of  the  railway,  and 
no  miscellaneous  passers  at  all  times  of  the  day  and  night 
serve  to  keep  it  ever  in  public.  Only  at  intervals,  four  or 
five  times  a  day,  there  rushes  by  the  long  train  of  carriages, 
and  then  all  is  as  quiet  as  before. 

We  also  passed  through  London,  with  which  I  was  once  so 
familiar,  and  which  now  I  almost  gaze  at  with  the  wonder  of 
a  stranger.  That  enormous  city,  grand  beyond  all  other 
earthly  grandeur,  sublime  with  the  sublimity  of  the  sea  or  of 
mountains,  is  yet  a  place  that  I  should  be  most  sorry  to  call 
my  home.  In  fact  its  greatness  repels  the  notion  of  home; 
it  may  be  a  palace,  but  it  cannot  be  a  home.  How  different 
from  the  mingled  greatness  and  sweetness  of  our  mountain 
valleys ;  and  yet  he  who  were  strong  in  body  and  mind, 
ought  to  desire  rather,  if  he  must  do  one,  to  spend  all  his  life 
in  London,  than  all  his  life  in  Westmoreland.  For  not  yet  can 

*  "  The  Epicureans,"  he  said,  "  did  not  meddle  with  politics,  that  they 
might  be  as  quiet  as  possible  from  the  strife  of  tongues.  There  are  good 
people  who  do  this  now ,  remaining  in  willing  ignorartce  of  what  is  going  on. 
But  the  mischief  is,  they  cannot  set  their  passions  to  sleep  as  they  can  their 
Understanding ;  and  when  they  do  come  to  interfere,  they  are  violent  and 
prejudiced  in  proportion  to  their  ignorance.  Such  meu',  to  be  consistent, 
ihould  live  like  Simon  Styiices." 


848  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

energy  and  rest  be  united  in  one,  and  this  is  not  our  time  and 
place  for  rest,  but  for  energy. 

Chartres,  August,  1837. 

2 Chartres  was  a  very  fine  termination  of  our 

tour.  We  stopped  at  the  Hotel  du  Grand  Monarque,  on  an 
open  space  just  at  the  outside  of  the  town,  and  from  thence 
immediately  made  our  way  to  the  Cathedral.  The  high  tower, 
so  celebrated  all  over  France,  is  indeed  remarkably  beautiful, 
but  the  whole  church  far  surpassed  my  expectations.  The 
portails  of  both  transepts  are  rich  in  figures  as  large  as  life, 
like  the  great  portail  at  Rheims ;  the  rose-windows  over  them 
are  very  rich,  and  the  windows  all  over  the  church  are  most 
rich  in  painted  glass.  The  size  is  great,  —  a  very  essential 
element,  I  think,  in  the  merits  of  a  cathedral,  —  and  all  the 
back  of  the  choir  was  adorned  with  groups  of  figures  in  very 
high  relief,  which  had  an  extremely  fine  effect.  These  are 
all  the  proper  and  perpetual  beauties  of  Chartres  Cathedral ; 
but  we  happen  to  see  it  on  the  Festival  of  the  Assumption, 
when  the  whole  church  was  full  of  people  in  every  part,  when 
the  service  was  going  on  in  the  choir,  and  the  whole  building 
was  ringing  with  the  peals  of  the  organ,  and  with  the  voices 
of  the  numerous  congregation.  Unchristian  as  was  the  ser- 
vice, so  that  one  could  have  no  sympathy  with  it  in  itself,  yet 
it  was  delightful  to  contrast  the  crowded  state  of  the  huge 
building,  —  nave,  transepts,  and  aisles,  all  swarming  with  peo- 
ple, and  the  sharing  of  all  in  the  service,  —  with  the  naked- 
ness of  our  own  cathedrals,  where  all,  except  the  choir,  is 
now  merely  a  monument  of  architecture.  There  is  no  more 
provoking  confusion  to  my  mind  than  that  which  is  often  made 
between  the  magnificence  and  beauty  of  the  Romish  Church 
and  its  superstitions.  No  one  abhors  more  than  I  do  the 
essence  of  Popery,  i.  e.  Priestcraft ;  or  the  setting  up  a  quan- 
tity of  human  mediators,  interpreters,  between  God  and  man. 
But  this  is  retained  by  those  false  Protestants  who  call  them- 
selves High  Churchmen  ;  while  they  have  sacrificed  of  Popery 
only  its  better  and  more  popular  parts ;  its  beauty  and  its  im- 
pressiveness.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Puritans  and  Evangeli- 
cals, whilst  they  disclaim  Popery,  undervalue  the  authority 
and  power  of  the  Church,  not  of  the  Clergy,  and  have  a  bibli- 
olatry,  especially  towards  the  Old  Testament,  quite  as  foolish 
and  as  mischievous  as  the  superstition  of  the  Catholics.  The 
open  churches,  the  varied  services,  the  beautiful  solemnities, 


APPENDIX  D. 

the  processions,  the  Calvaries,  the  crucifixes,  the  appeals  to 
the  eye  and  ear  through  which  the  heart  is  reached  most 
effectually,  have  no  natural  connection  with  superstition. 
People  forget  that  Christian  worship  is  in  its  essence  spiritual, 
—  that  is,  it  depends  for  its  efficacy  on  no  circumstances  of 
time  or  place  or  form,  —  but  that  Christianity  itself  has  given 
us  the  best  helps  towards  making  our  worship  spiritual  to  us, 
that  is,  sincere  and  lively,  by  the  visible  images  and  signs 
which  it  has  given  us  of  God  and  of  heavenly  things,  namely, 
the  Person  of  the  Man  Christ  Jesus,  and  the  Sacraments. 

To  forbear,  therefore,  from  all  use  of  the  Humanity  of 
Christ,  as  an  aid  to  our  approaching  in  heart  to  the  Invisi- 
ble Father,  is  surely  to  forfeit  one  of  the  merciful  purposes 
of  the  Incarnation,  and  to  fall  a  little  into  that  one  great  ex- 
treme of  error,  the  notion  that  man  can  either  in  his  under- 
standing, or  in  his  heart,  approach  to  the  Eternal  and  Invisi- 
ble God,  without  the  aid  of  a  /^ea-tVqr,  or  "  interpres ; "  (the 
English  word,  "  Mediator,"  has  become  so  limited  in  its  sense 
that  it  does  not  reach  to  the  whole  extent  of  the  case,)  we 
want  not  an  interpreter  only,  but  a  medium  of  communica- 
tion, —  some  middle  point,  in  which  the  intelligible  may 
unite  with  the  perfections  of  the  unintelligible,  and  so  may 
prepare  us  hereafter  to  understand  Him  who  is  now  un- 
intelligible. 

I  think  that  this  is  important,  for  many  reasons,  both  as 
regards  Popery  and  our  Pseudo-Popery,  and  Evangelicalism 
and  Unitarianism.  The  errors  of  all  four  seem  to  flow  out 
of  a  confusion  as  to  the  great  truth  of  our  need  of  a 
and  of  the  various  ways  in  which  Christ  is  our  One 
and  that  with  infinite  perfectness. 

IX.   TOUR  IX  THE  SOUTH  OF  FRANCE. 

Paris,  July  14, 1839. 

1 But  really,  when  we  went  out  on  these  leads, 

and  looked  down  on  the  whole  mass  of  the  trees  of  the  Tuil- 
eries'  garden,  forming  a  luxuriant  green  bed  below  us,  and 
saw  over  them  the  gilded  dome  of  the  Invalids,  and  the  mass 
of  the  Tuileries,  and  the  rows  of  orange-trees,  and  the  people 
sitting  at  their  ease  amongst  them,  and  the  line  of  the  street 
not  vanishing,  as  in  London,  in  a  thick  cloud  of  smoke  or  fog, 
but  with  the  white  houses  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach  distinct 
;>n  the  sky,  —  and  that  ?ky  just  in  the  western  line  of  the 

VOL.  n.  30 


850  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

etreet,  one  blaze  of  gold  from  the  setting  sun,  —  not  a  weak 
watery  sun,  but  one  so  mighty  that  his  setting  was  like  the 
death  of  a  Caesar  or  a  Napoleon,  —  of  one  mighty  for  good 
and  for  evil,  —  of  one  to  be  worshipped  by  ignorant  men, 
either  as  God  or  Demon,  —  one  hardly  knew  whether  to 
rejoice  or  to  grieve  at  his  departure  ;  —  when  we  saw  all  this, 
we  could  not  but  feel  that  Paris  is  full  of  the  most  poetical 
beauty. 

Cosne,  July  16, 1839. 

2 The  wide  landscape  under  this  bright  sky  looks 

more  than  joyous,  and  the  sun  in  his  unobstructed  course  is 
truly  giant-like.  Here  one  can  understand  how  men  came  to 
worship  the  sun,  and  to  depict  him  with  all  images  of  power 
and  of  beauty,  —  armed  with  his  resistless  arrows,  yet  the 
source  of  life  and  light.  And  yet  feeling,  as  none  can  feel  more 
strongly  the  evils  of  the  state  of  England,  yet  one  cannot  but 
see  also,  that  the  English  are  a  greater  people  than  these,  — 
more  like,  that  is,  one  of  the  chosen  people  of  history,  who 
are  appointed  to  do  a  great  work  for  mankind.  We  are  over 
bustling,  but  there  is  less  activity  here,  without  more  repose. 
But,  however,  "  it  is  not  expedient,  doubtless ; "  and  have  not 
we  failed  to  improve  the  wonderful  talents  which  have  been 
given  to  us  ? 

Aries,  July  20,  1839. 

3.  We  have  just  been  walking  round  this  town,  after  hav- 
ing first  been  down  to  the  Rhone,  and  had  a  bathe  in  him, 
which,  as  we  had  seen  so  much  of  him,  was,  I  thought,  only 
a  proper  compliment  to  him.  But  I  ought  to  go  back  in 

order,  dearest  M ,  to  the  Pope's  palace  at  Avignon,  only 

this  heat  makes  me  lazy.  There  was  an  old  porter,  who 
opened  to  us  the  first  gate,  and  led  us  into  an  enormous  court 
full  of  soldiers,  for  it  is  now  used  as  a  barrack ;  then  he  opened 
a  door  into  a  long  gallery,  —  perhaps  a  hundred  feet  long,  — 

through  which  we  were  to  pass The  rooms  beyond 

were  scenes  not  to  be  forgotten ;  —  prisons  where  unhappy 
men  had  engraved  their  names  on  the  stones,  and  mottoes, 
mostly  from  Scripture,  expressing  their  patience  and  their 
hope.  One  man  had  carved  simply  our  Lord's  name,  as  if  it 
gave  him  a  comfort  to  write  it ;  there  was  I.  H.  S.,  and  nothing 
more.  Some  of  these  dens  had  been  the  torture-rooms,  and 
one  was  so  contrived  in  the  roof  and  walls  as  to  deaden  all 
sound  ;  while  in  another  there  was  a  huge  stone  trough,  in  which 
the  question  "  h  1'eau  bouillante  "  used  to  be  put ;  and  iu  ye4 


APPENDIX  D.  351 

another  the  roof  was  still  blackened  by  the  fires  in  which  the 
victims  had  been  burnt  alive.  One  of  these  same  rooms,  long 
since  disused  by  the  Inquisition,  had  been  chosen  as  the  prison 
and  scene  of  the  murder  of  the  victims  of  the  aristocratical 
party  in  the  massacre  in  1790 ;  and  in  it  there  was  a  sort  of 
trap-door,  through  which  the  bodies  were  thrown  down  into 
the  lowest  room  of  the  tower,  which  was  then  used  as  an  ice- 
house. And  the  walls  of  the  intermediate  room  were  visibly 
streaked  with  the  blood  of  those  who  were  so  thrown  down 
after  they  had  been  massacred.* 

July,  1839. 

4 We  are  now  between  the  Lion  d'Or  and  Salon, 

on  the  famous  Plaine  de  Crau,  or  Plain  of  Stones,  one  vast 
mass  of  pebbles,  which  cover  the  country  for  several  leagues, 

and  reduce  it  to  utter  barrenness We  are  now  in  the 

midst  of  this  plain  of  stones,  utter  desolation  on  every  side, 
the  magnificent  line  of  the  Alpines,  as  they  are  called,  or 
Provence  mountains,  stretching  on  our  left ;  and  on  our  right, 
close  along  by  the  road-side,  runs,  full  and  fresh  and  lively,  a 
stream  of  water,  one  of  the  channels  of  irrigation  brought 
from  the  Durance,  and  truly  giving  life  to  the  thirsty  land. 
"  He  maketh  the  wilderness  a  running  water,"  might  be  said 
truly  of  this  life  in  the  midst  of  death.  Here  are  two  houses 
just  built  by  the  road-side,  and  opposite  to  them  a  little  patch 
of  ground  just  verdured,  surrounded  by  a  little  belt  of  cy- 
presses and  willows  !  now,  again,  all  is  desolate,  —  all  but  the 
living  stream  on  our  right,  and  some  sheep  wandering  on  the 
left  amidst  the  stones,  and  living  one  sees  not  how.  The  sun 
has  just  set  over  this  vast  plain,  just  as  at  sea.  Reeds  and 
yellow  thistles  fringe  the  stream. 

Salon,  July  20, 1839. 

We  have  stopped  here  on  our  way  to  Marseilles  from  Aries, 
and  I  really  never  saw  anything  more  romantic  than  it  is. 
There  are  tall  trees,  one  very  fine  plane  amongst  them,  in  the 
middle  of  the  street,  and  under  their  shade  is  a  fountain  play- 
ing, which  makes  a  perpetual  music,  —  up  above  is  the  cloud- 
less sky,  and  the  almost  full  moon,  and  below,  in  full  activity, 
is  the  population  of  Salon.  They  crowded  round  the  carriage, 
as  there  was  some  difficulty  in  getting  open  the  boot,  and  I 
could  have  fancied  myself  in  Spain  to  see  their  dark  faces 
and  eyes,  their  grave  manner,  their  white  felt  hats,  worn 

*  See  Letter  in  chap.  x.  vol.  ii.  p.  151. 


852  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

alike  by  man  and  boy,  and  to  hear  their  Provenqal  language, 
which  sounds  much  more  like  Spanish  than  French,  and  is 
indeed  quite  as  like  one  as  the  other,  and  the  old  fille  of  the 
inn  might  pass  for  Spanish  anywhere.  But  what  a  difference 
is  made  by  good  laws  and  regular  government:  here  all  is 
peace  and  civility,  while  on  the  other  side  of  the  Pyrenees  all 
is  blood  and  hatred.  The  bedrooms  here  are  French  enough, 
but  I  suspect  that  there  would  be  many  things  thoroughly 
Spanish  if  I  were  to  pry  into  the  mysteries  of  the  kitchen 
and  back  settlements. 

Left  Salon  5.40.  I  am  so  glad  we  did  not  go  on  last  night, 
dearest,  for  we  should  have  lost  a  great  deal.  Salon  is  at  the 
end  of  the  Plain  of  Stones,  overhung  by  the  rocky  hills  in 
tiers  of  cliff,  but  no  longer  bare,  but  covered  with  olives  and 
mulberries.  We  made  our  way  up  to  the  top  of  these  hills, 
and  opened  on  a  view  of  a  character  such  as  I  have  never 
seen.  It  was  the  French  picture  in  point  of  breadth  and 
richness,  set  in  an  Italian  framework  of  mountains  and  with 
the  details,  as  to  the  buildings  which  are  scattered  over  the 
valley  and  the  profusion  of  olives  and  mulberries,  very  much 
as  I  imagine  like  Spain. 

Point  above  St.  Cergues,  August  2, 1839- 

5 I  am  come  out  alone,  my  dearest,  to  this  spot, 

—  the  point  almost  of  our  own  view,  to  see  the  morning  sun 
on  Mont  Blanc  and  on  the  Lake,  and  to  look  with  more,  I 
trust,  than  outward  eyes  on  this  glorious  scene.  It  is  over- 
powering, like  all  other  intense  beauty,  if  you  dwell  upon  it ; 
but  I  contrast  it  immediately  with  our  Rugby  horizon,  and 
our  life  of  duty  there,  and  our  cloudy  sky  of  England, — 
cloudy  socially,  alas !  far  more  darkly  than  physically.  But 
beautiful  as  this  is,  and  peaceful,  may  I  never  breathe  a  wish 
to  retire  hither,  even  with  you  and  our  darlings,  if  it  were 
possible ;  but  may  I  be  strengthened  to  labor,  and  to  do  and 
to  suffer  in  our  own  beloved  country  and  Church,  and  to  give 
my  life,  if  so  called  upon,  for  Christ's  cause  and  for  them. 
And  if —  as  I  trust  it  will  —  this  rambling,  and  this  beauty  of 
Nature  in  foreign  lands,  shall  have  strengthened  me  for  my 
work  at  home,  then  we  may  both  rejoice  that  we  have  had 
this  little  parting.  And  now  I  turn  away  from  the  Alps,  and 
from  the  south,  and  may  God  speed  us  to  one  another,  and 
bless  us  and  ours,  in  Him  and  in  His  Son  now  and  forever. 


APPENDIX  D.  353 

August  4,  1839. 

6 It  is  curious  to  observe  how  nations  run  a  sim- 
ilar course  with  each  other.  We  are  now  on  a  new  road, 
made  by  some  private  speculators,  with  a  toll  on  it,  and  they 
laud  it  much  as  a  great  improvement.  And  such  it  is  really : 
yet  it  is  quite  like  "  Bit  and  Bit,"  *  at  Whitemoss,  for  it  goes 
over  a  lower  part  of  the  hill,  instead  of  keeping  the  valley  ; 
so  that  forty  years  hence  we  may  have  "  Radical  Reform  "  in 
the  shape  of  a  road  quite  in  the  valley ;  and  then  come  rail- 
roads by  steam,  and  then  perhaps  railroads  by  air,  or  some 
other  farther  improvement.  And  "quis  finis?"  That  we 
cannot  tell ;  and  we  have  great  need,  I  know,  to  strengthen 
our  moral  legs,  seeing  that  our  physical  legs  are  getting  such 
great  furtherances  to  their  speed.  But  still,  do  not  check 
either,f  but  advance  both ;  for  though  one  may  advance  with- 
out the  other,  yet  one  cannot  be  checked  without  the  other ; 
because  to  check  the  development  of  any  of  our  powers,  8wd- 
p.eis,  is  in  itself  sinful. 

Calais,  August  7,  1839. 

7 Of  the  mere  face  of  the  country,  I  have  spoken 

enough  already,  and  I  am  quite  sure  that  English  travellers 
do  it  great  injustice.  I  see  a  great  deal  of  travelling,  partic- 
ularly in  the  south,  a  great  number  of  diligences,  and  a  very 
active  steam  navigation  on  the  Rhone,  both  up  and  down. 
The  new  suspension-bridges  thrown  over  the  Rhone,  at  almost 
every  town  from  Lyons  to  Avignon,  are  a  certain  evidence  of 
a  stir  amongst  the  people ;  and  there  is  also  a  railway  from 
Lyons  to  St.  Etienne,  and  from  Roanne  to  Lyons.  I  see 
crosses  and  crucifixes  —  some  new  —  set  up  by  the  roadside, 
and  treated  with  no  disrespect ;  but  I  think  I  see,  also,  a  re- 
markable distinctness  here  between  the  nation  and  the  Church, 
as  if  it  by  no  means  followed  that  a  Frenchman  was  to  be  a 
Christian.  I  saw  this  morning  "  Ecole  Chretienne,"  stuck 
up  in  Aire,  which  implied  much  too  clearly  that  there  might 
be  "Ecoles  non  Chretiennes."  And  this  I  have  seen  in 

1  *  Playful  names  which  he  gave  to  two  roads  between  Rydal  and  Gras- 
mere. 

t  The  delight  with  which,  from  such  associations  as  these,  he  regarded 
even  the  unsightliness  of  the  great  Birmingham  Railway,  when  it  was 
brought  to  Rugby,  was  very  characteristic  of  him.  ''  I  rejoice  to  see  it,"  he 
said,  as  he  stood  "on  one  of  its  arches,  and  watched  the  train  pass  on  through 
the  distant  hedgerows,  —  "I  rejoice  to  see  it,  and  think  that  feudality  is 
gone  forever.  It  is  so  great  a  blessing  to  think  that  any  one  eril  is  really 
extinct.  Bunyan  thought  that  the  giant  Pope  was  disabled  forever,  — and 
bow  greatly  was  he  mistaken." 

30*  w 


854  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

French  literature;  religious  men  are  spoken  of  as  acting 
according  to  the  principles  of  Christianity,  just  as  if  those 
principles  were  something  peculiar,  and  by  no  means  acknowl- 
edged by  Frenchmen  in  general.  I  see  again  a  state  of 
property  which  does  appear  to  me  an  incalculable  blessing. 
I  see  a  fusion  of  ranks,  which  may  be  an  equal  blessing.  I 
do  not  know  whether  it  is.  Well-dressed  men  appear  talking 
familiarly  with  persens  of  what  we  should  call  decidedly  the 
lower  classes.*  Now  if  this  shows  that  the  poorer  man  is 
raised  in  mind  to  the  level  of  the  richer,  it  is  a  blessing  of  the 
highest  order ;  if  it  shows  that  the  richer  man  has  fallen  to  the 
level  of  the  poorer,  then  I  am  not  so  sure  that  it  is  a  blessing. 
But  I  have  no  right  to  say  that  it  is  so,  because  I  do  not  know 
it ;  only  we  see  few  here  whose  looks  and  manners  are  what 
we  should  call  those  of  a  thorough  gentleman  ;  and  though  I 
do  not  believe  that  I  am  an  aristocrat,  yet  I  should  grieve 
beyond  measure  if  our  standard  either  of  morals  or  of  man- 
ners were  to  be  lowered.  Unquestionably  to  English  eyes 
the  women  look  far  more  lady-like  than  the  men  look  like 
gentlemen :  I  speak  only  of  the  look,  for  a  hasty  traveller 
cannot  judge  farther.  We  have,  I  think,  what  France  has 
not; — as  she  has  in  her  large  population  of  proprietors,  what 
we  have  not.  But  it  seems  to  me  that,  according  to  the  ordi- 
nary laws  of  God's  providence,  the  state  of  France  is  more 
hopeful  for  the  future,  that  society  in  its  main  points  is  more 
stable,  and  that  time  being  thus  gained,  religious  and  moral 
truth  will  or  may  work  their  way,  whenever  it  shall  please 
God  to  prepare  His  instruments  for  the  work.  Whereas,  in 
England,  what  moral  power,  without  a  direct  and  manifest 
interposition  of  God,  can  overcome  the  physical  difficulties  of 
our  state  of  population  and  property  ?  And  if  Old  England 
perish  as  Old  France  perished  in  the  first  Revolution,  -let  no 
man  hope  to  see,  even  at  an  equal  cost  of  immediate  crime 
and  misery,  a  New  England  spring  up  in  its  room,  such  as 
New  France  now  is.  If  Old  England  perish,  there  perishes, 
not  a  mere  accursed  thing,  such  as  was  the  system  of  Old 

*  "If  there  is  any  one  trnth  after  the  highest  for  which  I  would  die  at 
the  stake."  was  one  of  his  short,  emphatic  sayings,  u  it  would  be  Democracy 
without  Jacobinism."  Believing  that  the  natural  progress  of  society  was 
towards  greater  etjuality,  he  had  also  great  confidence  in  the  natural  in- 
stincts implanted  in  man  —  reverence  for  authority,  and  resistance  to  change 
—  as  checks  on  what  he  considered  a  Jacobinical  disregard  of  existing  ties 
or  ancient  institutions.  "  What  an  instructive  work,"  he  paid,  "might  be 
written  on  God's  safeguards  against  Democracy,  as  distinguished  from  man's 
»afeguards  against  it" 


APPENDIX  D.  355 

France,  which  had  died  inwardly  to  all  good  long  before  the 
axe  was  laid  to  its  root;  but  there  perishes  the  most  active 
and  noble  life  which  the  world  has  ever  yet  seen,  —  which  is 
made  up  wholesomely  of  past  and  present,  so  that  the  centu- 
ries of  English  History  are  truly  "  bound  each  to  each  by 
natural  piety."  Now  to  destroy  so  great  a  life  must  be  an 
utterly  unblessed  thing,  from  which  there  can  come  only  evil. 
And  would  England,  with  her  dense  manufacturing  and 
laboring  population,  —  with  her  narrow  limits,  —  and  her 
intense  activity,  ever  be  brought  into  a  state  like  that  of  agri- 
cultural France,  with  her  present  proprietors  ?  No  tongue  or 
thought  of  man  could  imagine  the  evil  of  a  destruction  of  our 
present  system  in  England ;  wherefore  may  God  give  us  His 
spirit  of  wisdom  and  power  and  goodness,  to  mould  it  into  as 
happy  accordance  with  the  future  as  it  is  already  with  the 
past ;  to  teach  the  life  that  is  in  it  to  communicate  itself  to  the 
dead  elements  around  it,  for  unless  they  are  taken  into  the 
living  body,  and  partake  of  its  life,  they  will  inevitably  make 
it  partake  of  their  death.  And  now  may  God  grant  that  I 
may  be  restored  safely  to  that  England  to-morrow,  and  that  I 
may  labor  to  promote  her  good.  "  O,  pray  for  the  peace  of 
Jerusalem,  —  peace  be  within  thy  walls  and  plenteousness 
within  thy  palaces." 

Adieu,  dearest  wife,  and  may  God  bless  us  both  now  and 
ever ! 

X.       TOUR    TO    ROME    AND    NAPLES    THROUGH    FRANCE    AND 
ITALY,    1840. 

[The  passages  marked  as  quotations  have  been  inserted 
from  the  memoranda  of  conversations  kept  by  a  former  pupil, 
who  accompanied  him  and  his  wife  on  the  greater  part  of  this 
tour.  Most  of  these  being,  like  the  Journal,  connected  more 
or  less  with  the  localities  of  the  journey,  would  not,  it  was 
thought  be  out  of  place  here.  It  may  be  as  well  to  add,  that 
the  extracts  in  No.  6  form  one  continuous  portion,  which  was 
selected  to  give  a  better  notion  of  the  Journals  in  their  origi- 
nal state  than  could  be  collected  from  mere  fragments.] 

Orleans,  June  22,  1840. 

1.  Here  we  are  at  last  in  a  place  which  I  have  so  long 
wanted  to  see.  It  stands  quite  in  a  flat,  on  the  north  or  right 
bank  of  the  Loire.  One  great  street  under  two  names,  divided 


856  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

by  the  Square  or  Place  of  Martray,  from  north  to  south,  — 
from  the  barrier  on  the  Paris  road  to  the  river.  We  have 
now  been  out  to  see  the  town,  or  at  least  the  cathedral  and  the 
bridge  over  the  Loire.  The  former  is  by  far  the  finest  Gothic 
building  of  the  seventeenth  century  which  I  ever  saw ;  the  end 
of  the  choir  is  truly  magnificent,  and  so  is  the  exterior,  and 
its  size  is  great.  We  then  drove  to  the  bridge,  a  vast  fabric 
over  this  wide  river,  —  the  river  disfigured  by  sandbanks,  as 
at  Cosne,  but  still  always  fine,  and  many  vessels  lying  under 
the  quays  for  the  river  navigation. 

"  The  siege  of  Orleans  is  one  of  the  turning-points  in  the 
history  of  nations.  Had  the  English  dominion  in  France  been 
established,  no  man  can  tell  what  might  have  been  the  con- 
sequence to  England,  which  would  probably  have  become  an 
appendage  to  France.  So  little  does  the  prosperity  of  the 
people  depend  upon  success  in  war,  that  two  of  the  greatest 
defeats  we  ever  had,  have  been  two  of  our  greatest  blessings, 
Orleans  and  Bannockburn.  It  is  curious,  too,  that  in  Edward 
II.'s  reign,  the  victory  over  the  Irish  proved  our  curse,  as  our 
defeat  by  the  Scots  turned  out  a  blessing.  Had  the  Irish  re- 
mained independent,  they  might  afterwards  have  been  united 
to  us,  as  Scotland  was ;  and  had  Scotland  been  reduced  to 
subjection,  it  would  have  been  another  curse  to  us  like  Ire- 
land." * 

June  24,  1840. 

2 Now  for  Bourges  a  little  more.     In  the  crypt 

is  a  Calvary,  and  figures  as  large  as  life  representing  the  bury- 
ing of  our  Lord.  The  woman  who  showed  us  the  crypt,  had 
her  little  girl  with  her ;  and  she  lifted  up  the  child,  about  three 
years  old,  to  kiss  the  feet  of  our  Lord.  Is  this  idolatry  ?  Nay, 
verily,  it  may  be  so,  but  it  need  not  be,  and  assuredly  is  in 
itself  right  and  natural.  I  confess  I  rather  envied  the  child. 
It  is  idolatry  to  talk  about  Holy  Church  and  Holy  Fathers,  — 
bowing  down  to  fallible  and  sinful  men ;  —  not  to  bend  knee, 
lip,  and  heart  to  every  thought  f  and  every  image  of  Him  our 
manifested  God. 

June  25, 1840. 

Left  Montlucon,  and  were  well  out  of  the  town,  6.14,  June 
25th.  A  lovely  morning  in  this  lovely  country.  T«J>  dc  (TTI- 

*  "Bannockburn,"  he  used  to  say,  "ought  to  be  celebrated  by  English- 
lien  as  a  national  festival,  and  Athunree  lamented  as  a  national  judgment." 

t  See  this  more  fully  developed  in  Essay  on  Interpretation  of  Scripture, 
Berm.  vol.  ii.,  and  note  to  Sunn.  II.,  in  vol.  iii. 


APPENDIX  D.  357 

\OL>P'L<J)V  fj  fcrdrfg  TOiaSf  TIS  eori  ras  fJ.ev  ava£vpi8as  KOI  TOVS  ^irS>vas 
(fropovcriv  fipivtas,  Kal  TO  avro  e\ovras  ^pa^ia,  nvdveov  faftamitvovs 
ras  8e  Kvvtas  VTrfpp.ryfdeis  re  Kal  KvK\orepfis,  T^C  irapaipofpiTjv  a>s 
fiitfiv,  A«ya>  8e  TO  vrrep  TOS  o<ppvs  \mfpt\ov,  f \6vrat  fvpvTarrjit.  We 
are  now  turning  off  eastwards,  to  leave  this  lovely  valley  of 
the  Cher,  stealing  up  one  of  its  feeders  towards  Neris.  On 
our  left  is  the  outer  wall  of  the  main  valley,  bare  schistous 
hills,  with  very  slight  ravines :  on  our  right  is  an  immpeia,  the 
boundary  of  our  immediate  valley.  We  passed  a  lovely  scene 
just  now;  the  bottom  of  a  small  combe,  with  fine  oaks  above 
on  each  slope,  and  haymaking,  or  rather  mowing,  going  on 
busily  between.  The  combe  was  so  narrow  that  the  trees  on 
each  side  seemed  to  overshadow  all  of  it.  The  geology  I  do 
not  make  out :  I  see  granitic  pebbles,  but  what  the  hills  them- 
selves are,  I  do  not  know.  I  think  that  it  is  the  grit  of  the 
coal,  and  the  Neris  waters,  I  suppose,  are  like  Harrowgate. 
We  have  passed  through  Neris  without  stopping,  on  our  way 
to  Montaign,  and  are  now  on  a  table-land  between  the  valley 
of  the  Cher,  and  that  of  his  feeder,  the  Aumance,  which  we 
crossed  yesterday,  at  Meaulac.  Then  from  the  same  ridge  we 
looked  down  upon  both  streams,  but  now  there  is  a  table-land 
of  some  miles  between  them.  It  is  a  country  of  hedges  and 
hedgerow  trees,  with  scattered  houses,  very  quiet  and  peace- 
ful, but  of  course,  being  table-land,  not  beautiful.  But  as  we 
entered  Neris,  up  a  long  hill  overhanging  the  feeder  of  the 
Cher,  or  looking  down  the  valley  upon  Montluqon,  and  the 
wide  landscape  beyond,  it  was  most  beautiful.  Now  we  are 
descending  into  the  valley  of  the  Aumance,  or  rather  of  his 
feeders ;  a  perfectly  English  country,  like  that  between  Coles- 
hill  and  Litchfield ;  woods,  hedges,  hedgerow  trees,  corn,  pas- 
ture, and  a  valley  not  wider  than  in  England,  which  makes  the 
resemblance.  Arrived  at  Montaign  9.55.  Left  it  at  10.2. 
We  are  now  descending  to  Bonble,  a  feeder  of  the  Allier. 
The  country  most  beautiful,  not  mountainous,  but  of  the  best 
sort  of  hill  and  valley.  The  woods  are  fine,  and  the  scattered 
oaks  in  the  combes  and  everywhere  are  most  picturesque. 
Here  we  cross  the  Bonble  at  S.  Elvy  to  ascend  through  a 
forest  of  fine  trees  on  the  other  hill-side.  We  have  just  caught 
a  view  of  the  Puy  de  Dome,  Mont  d'Or,  &c.,  and  are  going 
to  descend  into  the  valley  of  the  Sioule  at  Menat.  —  We  have 
crossed  the  Sioule  and  are  ascending ;  but  I  was  not  in  the 
Jeast  prepared  for  the  sort  of  scenery.  The  descent  was 
through  a  narrow  rocky  valley,  after  having  swept  round  the 


858  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

sides  of  the  hills  in  an  extremely  good  line.  The  hills  here 
are  just  like  those  on  the  Rhine,  the  same  slate,  but  much 
finer,  because  here  the  valleys  being  narrow,  the  height  is 
somewhat  in  proportion.  They  have  made  a  beautiful  new 
bridge  of  two  high  arches  over  the  Sioule,  and  are  everywhere 
improving  the  line  of  road,  another  proof  of  the  progress 
which  France  is  making,  certainly,  in  physical  prosperity, — 
hope  and  believe  also,  in  moral.  This  is  Auvergne,  the  ker- 
nel, as  it  were,  of  France ;  but  the  language  hitherto  is  quite 
intelligible  to  me,  and  the  costume  does  not  seem  to  have 
changed  from  that  of  Bourbonnais.  Oxen  are  used  for  draught, 
and  on  these  hills  there  is  of  course  not  much  corn,  and  no 
vines,  but  there  is  a  good  deal  of  beech  wood  on  the  higher 
points,  at  least  on  the  side  by  which  we  descended.  Right 
before  us  now,  on  an  opposite  hill,  is  a  ruined  castle,  one  of 
those  dens  of  Cacus  happily  laid  open  to  the  day  and  unten- 
anted;  for  no  Jacobinism  was  ever  so  detestable  as  that  of 
the  feudal  aristocracy,  where  every  man  derived  his  dominion 
from  his  own  power,  and  used  it  for  his  own  purposes.  I 
dislike  Jacobinical  liberty,  how  much  more,  then,  Jacobinical 
oppression. 

June  25. 

3.  "  It  is  absurd  to  extol  one  age  at  the  expense  of  an- 
other, since  each  has  its  good  *  and  its  bad.  There  was  greater 
genius  in  ancient  times,  but  art  and  science  come  late.  But 
in  one  respect  it  is  to  be  feared  we  have  degenerated,  —  what 
Tacitus  so  beautifully  expresses,  after  telling  a  story  of  a  man 
who,  in  the  civil  war  in  Vespasian's  time,  had  killed  his  own 
brother,  and  received  a  reward  for  it ;  and  then  relates  that 
the  same  thing  happened  before  in  the  civil  war  of  Sylla  and 
Marius,  and  the  man  when  he  found  it  out  killed  himself  from 

*  He  used  frequently  to  dwell  on  the  essentially  mixed  character  of  all 
human  things;  as,  for  example,  in  his  principle  of  the  application  of  Proph- 
ecy to  human  events  or  persons;  so,  too,  his  characteristic  dislike  of  Milton's 
representation  of  Satan.  "  By  giving  a  human  likeness,  and  representing 
him  as  a  bad  man,  you  necessarily  get  some  images  of  what  is  good  as  well 
as  of  what  is  bad ;  for  no  living  man  is  entirely  evil.  Even  banditti  have 
Borne  generous  qualities ;  whereas  the  representation  of  the  Devil  should  be 
purely  and  entirely  evil  without  a  tinge  of  good,  as  that  of  God  should  be 
purely  and  entirely  good  without  a  tinge  of  evil ;  and  you  can  no  more  get 
the  one  than  the  other  from  anything  human.  With  the  heathen  it  was 
different ;  their  gods  were  themselves  made  up  of  good  and  of  evil,  and  so 
might  well  be  mixed  up  with  human  associations.  The  hoofs,  and  the  horns, 
and  the  tail  were  all  useful  in  this  way,  as  giving  you  an  image  of  some- 
thing altogether  disgusting.  And  so  Mephistophiles,  in  Faust,  and  the  other 
contemptible  and  hateful  character  of  the  Little  Master  in  Sintram,  are  fai 
more  true  than  the  Paradise  Lost." 


APPENDIX  D.  359 

remorse ;  and  then  he  adds,  '  tanto  major  apud  antiques,  ut 
virtutibus  gloria,  ita  flagitiis  pcenetentia  erat.'  The  deep  re- 
morse for  crime  is  less  in  advanced  civilization.  There  is 
more  of  sympathy  with  suffering  of  all  kinds,  but  less  abhor- 
rence of  what  is  admitted  to  be  crime." 

June,  1840. 

On  board  the  Sardinian  steamer,  the  Janus,  in  Marseilles 
Harbor,  July  2d,  and  this  moment  in  movement,  by  my 
watch,  at  1.50.  The  day  is  delicious,  —  not  a  cloud  in  the 
sky,  the  sea  bluer  than  blue,  the  gentlest  air  fanning  us,  and 
the  steamer  not  crowded.  There  is  no  lady  on  board  besides 

M ,  and  but  few  gentlemen.     The  mountain  barrier  of 

this  coast  is  always  fine,  and  in  many  places  the  hills  come 
down  steep,  and  bare,  and  dry,  to  the  sea; — but  often,  as 
now,  there  is  an  interval  of  plain  between  them  and  the  water, 
covered  with  olives  and  scattered  houses,  a  gorgeous  belt 
round  the  waist  of  the  rough  Torso-like  mountains.  It  is 
quite  a  new  scene  in  my  life  to  witness  the  almost  more  than 
earthly  beauty  of  this  navigation.  Now  we  are  passing  just 
between  the  islands  Javos  and  Risa  and  the  land :  the  sea  a 
perfect  lake :  the  islands  of  fantastic  rocky  forms,  and  the 
mainland  of  the  same  character.  We  have  now  passed 
Cassis,  and  are  just  come  to  Cap  1'Aigle;  —  in  a  short  time 
we  shall  open  upon  La  Ciotat,  —  a  small  town  between  Mar- 
seilles and  Toulon.  We  are,  as  usual,  close  under  the  cliffs, 
which  present  their  steep  and  scarred  sides  to  the  sea,  bare 
for  the  most  part,  but  here  and  there  with  some  pines  upon 
them.  Now  they  are  preparing  dinner ;  not  in  a  small  and 
unsavory  cabin,  but  out  on  the  deck  under  awnings ; —  and  the 
table-cloth  is  of  the  whitest,  and  the  plates  are  of  our  own 
blue  and  white  china,  with  the  three  men  and  the  bridge ; 
and  the  wine  is  in  nice  English  decanters,  and  there  is  the 
nicest  of  desserts  being  spread,  which  it  seems  is  to  precede  the 
dinner  instead  of  following  it.  Dinner  is  over,  and  a  right 
goodly  dinner  it  has  been :  we  sat  down  on  deck  a  party 
of  ten,  two  Englishmen  besides  ourselves,  both  agreeable 
enough  in  their  way.  And  now  we  are  just  off  Toulon,  see- 
ing those  beautiful  mountains  behind  the  town,  and  the  masts 
of  the  shipping  rising  over  the  low  ground  which  forms  the 
entrance  into  the  road,  and  the  green  hills  which  lie  towards 
Hyeres,  while  the  islands  lie  off  as  a  low  land,  which  I  am 
afraid  we  are  going  to  leave  to  our  left,  instead  of  passing 


360  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

between  them  and  the  land.  Well,  we  are  just  coming  to  the 
point  from  which  we  shall  see  Hyeres :  for  we  are  not  going 
outside  the  islands,  as  I  think,  but  between  them  and  a  pro- 
jecting point  of  the  coast,  connected  only  by  a  low  strip  of 
sand  or  shingle  with  the  mainland.  And  now  the  sun  is 
almost  setting,  and  from  him  to  us  there  is  one  golden  line 
through  the  water,  and  the  mountains,  sea,  and  sky  are  all 
putting  on  a  sober  and  a  deeper  tint.  It  is  solemnly  beautiful 
to  see  the  sea  under  the  vessel,  just  where  the  foam  caused  by 
the  paddles  melts  away  into  the  mass  of  blue .  the  restless 
but  yet  beautiful  finite  lost  in  the  peaceful  and  more  beau- 
tiful infinite.  The  historical  interest  of  this  coast  and  sea 
almost  sink  in  their  natural  beauties  ;  together,  they  give  to 
this  scene  an  interest  not  to  be  surpassed.  And  now,  good 
night,  my  darling,  —  and  all  of  you :  you  know  how  soon 
night  comes  here  after  the  sun  is  down ;  and  even  now  his 
orb  is  touching  the  mountains.  May  God's  blessing  be  with 
you  and  with  us,  through  Jesus  Christ. 

Genoa,  July  4, 1840. 

4.  We  are  now  farther  from  England  than  at  any  time  in 
our  former  tour,  dearest ,  but  our  faces  are  still  set  on- 
wards, and  I  believe  that  the  more  I  dislike  Italy,  or  rather 
the  Italians,  so  the  more  eagerly  do  I  desire  to  see  those 
parts  of  it  which  remind  me  only  of  past  times,  and  allow  me 
to  forget  the  present.  Certainly  I  do  greatly  prefer  France  to 
Italy,  Frenchmen  to  Italians ;  for  a  lying  people,  which  these 
emphatically  are,  stink  in  one's  moral  nose  all  the  day  long. 
Good  and  sensible  men,  no  doubt,  there  are  here  in  abundance ; 
but  no  nation  presents  so  bad  a  side  to  a  traveller  as  this. 
For,  —  whilst  we  do  not  see  its  domestic  life  and  its  private 
piety  and  charity,  —  the  infinite  vileness  of  its  public  officers, 
the  pettiness  of  the  Governments,  the  gross  ignorance  and 
the  utter  falsehood  of  those  who  must  come  in  your  way,  are 
a  continual  annoyance.  When  you  see  a  soldier  here,  you 
feel  no  confidence  that  he  can  fight ;  when  you  see  a  so-called 
man  of  letters,  you  are  not  sure  that  he  has  more  knowledge 
than  a  baby ;  when  you  see  a  priest,  he  may  be  an  idolater  or 
an  unbeliever;  when  you  see  a  judge  or  a  public  functionary, 
justice  and  integrity  may  be  utter  strangers  to  his  vocabulary. 
It  is  this  which  makes  a  nation  vile,  when  profession,  whether 
Godward  or  manward,  is  no  security  for  performance.  Now 
in  England  we  know  that  every  soldier  will  fight,  and  every 


APPENDIX  D  361 

public  functionary  will  be  honest.  In  France  and  in  Prussia 
we  know  the  same ;  and  with  us,  though  many  of  our  clergy 
may  be  idolaters,  yet  we  feel  sure  that  none  is  an  unbeliever. 

Pisa,  July  6,  1840. 

5 But  O  the  solemn  and  characteristic  beauty  of 

that  cathedral,  with  its  simple,  semicircular  arches  of  the 
twelfth  century,  its  double  aisles,  and  its  splendor  of  marbles 
and  decoration  of  a  later  date,  especially  on  the  ceiling.  Then 
we  went  to  the  Baptistery,  and  lastly  to  the  Campo  Santo, 
a  most  perfect  cloister,  the  windows  looking  towards  the 
burying-ground  within,  being  of  the  most  delicate  work.  But 
that  burying-ground  itself  is  the  most  striking  thing  of  all ; 
it  is  the  earth  of  the  Holy  City ;  for  when  the  Pisan  Cru- 
saders were  in  Palestine,  they  thought  no  spoil  which  they 
could  bring  home  was  so  precious  as  so  many  feet  in  depth  of 
the  holy  soil,  as  a  burying-place  for  them  and  their  children. 
This  was  not  like  Anson  watching  the  Pacific  from  Tinian 
to  Acapulco,  in  order  to  catch  the  Spanish  treasure-ship. 

Now,  however,  this  noble  burying-ground  is  disused,  and 
only  a  few  favored  persons  are  laid  there  by  the  special  per- 
mission of  the  Grand  Duke.  The  wild  vine  grows  freely  out 
of  the  ground,  and  clothes  it  better,  to  my  judgment,  than  four 
cypresses,  two  at  each  end,  which  have  been  lately  planted. 
The  Campo  Santo  is  now  desecrated  by  being  made  a 
museum.  The  famous  Cenotaphium  Pisanum  is  here,  a 
noble  monument,  but  Julia's  sons  and  Augustus's  grandsons 
have  no  business  on  the  spot  which  the  Pisans  filled  with  the 
holy  earth  of  Jerusalem.  The  town  itself  is  very  striking; 
the  large  flat  pavement  filling  up  the  whole  street  as  at 
Florence,  and  the  oroat  on  each  side,  or  else  good  and  clean 
houses,  varied  with  some  of  illustrious  antiquity.  And  after 
all  we  were  not  searched  at  the  gate  of  Pisa ;  it  seems  it  has 
been  lately  forbidden  by  the  government,  —  a  great  humanity. 

And  now,  dearest ,  good  night,  and  God  bless  you  and 

all  our  darlings,  and  wisli  us  a  prosperous  journey  of  three 
days  to  the  great  city  of  cities ;  for  Naples,  I  confess,  does  in 
comparison  appear  to  me  to  be  viler  than  vile,  a  city  without 
one  noble  association  in  ancient  days  or  modern. 

July  6,  1840. 

G.  And  now  we  are  on  the  great  road  from  Florence  to 
Home.  Rome  once  again,  but  now  how  much  dearer,  and  to 

VOL    II.  31 


862  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

me  more  interesting  than  when  I  saw  it  last,  and  in  how 
much  dearer  company.  Yet  how  sad  will  it  be  not  to  find 
Bunsen  there,  and  to  feel  that  Niebuhr  is  gone.  I  note  here 
in  every  group  of  people  whom  I  meet  many  with  light,  very 
light  eyes.  Is  this  the  German  blood  of  the  middle-age  con- 
quests and  wars,  or  are  the  mass  of  the  present  Italians  de- 
scended from  the  Roman  slaves,  —  Ligurians,  Kelts,  Germans, 
and  from  all  other  nations  ?  However,  of  the  fact  of  the 
many  light  eyes  in  Tuscany  I  am  sure.  The  country  is  beau- 
tiful, and  we  are  going  up  amidst  oak  woods  chiefly.  The 
hedges  here  are  brilliant;  the  Sweet  William  pinks  of  the 
deepest  color ;  the  broom,  the  clematis,  and  the  gum-cistus 
Salvianus,  that  beautiful  flower  which  I  have  never  seen  wild 
since  1827.  Here  is  the  beginning  of  the  mountain  scenery 
of  Central  Italy,  only  a  very  faint  specimen  of  it;  but  yet 
bearing  its  character,  —  the  narrow  valley,  the  road  in  a  ter- 
race above  it,  the  village  of  Staggia  with  its  old  walls  and 
castle  tower,  the  vines,  figs,  and  olives  over  all  the  country, 
and  the  luxuriant  covering  of  all  the  cliffs  and  road-side  banks, 
the  wild  fig  and  wild  vine.  Arrived  at  Castiglioncello  1.45. 
Left  it  1.53.  Ascending  gradually  towards  Sienna,  which  is 
at  the  top  of  the  whole  country,  dividing  the  streams  which 
feed  the  Arno  from  those  that  feed  the  Ombrone.  The  road 
here  is  a  defile  through  oak  woods,  very  beautiful ;  and  after 
having  got  up  through  the  wood,  we  are  in  a  high  plain,  but 
with  higher  hills  around  us,  and  a  great  deal  of  wood.  Here 
the  country  looks  parched,  for  the  soil  is  shallow. 

Arrived  at  the  gates  of  Sienna  3.16.  I  hope  that  I  shall 
not  have  much  time  to  write ;  nor  have  I,  for  the  carriage  is 
at  the  door.  Left  Sienna  4.50.  "We  did  not  stop  long,  as  is 
evident,  but  we  dined,  for  two  pauls  each  (about  one  franc), 
and  we  saw  the  cathedral,  a  thing  very  proper  to  do,  and 
moreover  the  cathedral  is  fine  and  very  rich,  and  has  some 
pictures  ;  amongst  the  rest,  a  set  of  pictures  of  the  events  of 
the  life  of  my  old  friend  ./Eneas  Silvius,  designed,  it  is  said, 
by  Raphaelle  in  his  early  youth.  There  were  also  some  fine 
illuminations  of  some  ancient  music-books,  and  some  very 
well-executed  Mosaics.  Yet  I  should  be  a  false  man  if  I  pro- 
fessed to  feel  much  pleasure  in  such  things.  What  I  did 
rejoice  in  was  the  view  which  we  had,  far  and  wide,  from  the 
heights  of  Sienna,  a  boundless  range  of  Apennines.  And 
coming  out  of  Sienna,  we  have  just  had  a  shower  of  Cicada 
drop  from  the  trees  upon  the  carriage,  who  hopped  off  when 


APPENDIX  D. 


anything  threatened  them  behind  with  an  agility  truly  mar- 
vellous. And  now  we  are  descending  a'orn  our  height, 
amidst  a  vast  extent  of  corn-fields  just  cleared,  and  the  view 
is  not  unlike  that  from  Pain  a  Bouchain,  only  some  of  the 
Apennines  before  us  are  too  fine  for  the  hills  about  Roanne. 
Let  me  notice  now  several  things  to  the  credit  of  the  Italians 
hereabouts.  First  of  all,  the  excessive  goodness  of  the  Al- 
bergo  del'  Ussaro  at  Pisa,  where  the  master,  who  speaks 
English,  changed  my  French  money  into  Tuscan  and  Roman, 
a  convenience  to  avoid  the  endless  disputes  about  the  exact 
value  of  the  foreign  coinage.  Next,  at  Castiglioncello,  tho 
stage  before  Sienna,  there  is  "Terzo  Cavallo,"  and  justly, 
seeing  that  the  whole  stage  is  up  hill.  I  said  to  the  ostler, 
"  You  have  a  right,  I  believe,  here,  to  a  third  horse ; "  to 
which  he  said,  "  Yes."  But  presently  he  added,  "  You  are 
only  two  persons,  and  I  shall  send  you  with  two  ; "  and  this 
he  did  without  any  compromise  of  paying  for  two  horses  and 
a  half:  but  we  had  two,  and  we  paid  only  for  two.  And 
finally,  the  Sienna  dinner,  at  four  pauls,  at  the  Aquila  Nera, 
was  worthy  of  all  commendation. 

As  I  have  occasion  to  complain  often  of  the  Italians,  it  is 
pleasant  to  be  able  to  make  these  exceptions.  Sienna  stands 
like  Langres,  and  as  we  have  been  descending,  two  little 
streams  have  risen  in  the  hill-sides  right  and  left,  and  now 
they  meet  and  form  a  green  valley,  into  which  we  are  just  de- 
scended, and  find  again  the  hedgerows,  the  houses,  and  the 
vines.  Arrived  at  Montaroni  5.57.  Left  it  6.4.  And  still, 
I  believe  we  are  going  to  have  another  stage  of  descent  to 
Buon  Convento.  Alas !  an  adventure  has  sadly  delayed  us, 
for  though  the  stage  be  mostly  descent  or  level  ground,  yet 
there  was  one  sharp  little  hill  soon  after  we  left  Montaroni,  in 
the  middle  of  which  our  horses  absolutely  would  not  go  on, 
wherefore  the  carriage  would  go  back,  and  soon  got  fast  in  the 

ditch.  M got  out  very  safely,  and  we  got  the  carriage 

out  of  the  ditch,  but  it  was  turned  round  in  the  doing  it,  and 
the  road  was  so  narrow  that  we  could  not  turn  it  right  again 
for  a  long  time.  Meanwhile,  a  passing  traveller  kindly  car- 
ried a  message  back  to  the  post  for  a  Terzo,  and  after  a  while 
Terzo  and  a  boy  came  to  our  aid,  and  brought  us  up  the  hill 
valiantly ;  and  Terzo  is  now  trotting  on,  a  bright  example  to 
his  companions. 

July  7.  Left  Buon  Convento  5.16.  Again  a  lovely  morn- 
ing, dearest ,  and  certainly  if  a  man  does  not  glorify  God 


362  LIFE  OF  DR-  ARNOLD. 

me  more  intere;^  M  we  have  Just  been  reading,*  "the  very 
much  dearer  cor  CI7  out-"  The  country  is  not  easy  to  de- 
Bunsen  there  a*jnework  °^  ^e  Apennines  here  is  very  corn- 
in  every  group'3  °^  *ne  main  chain  being  very  twisted,  and 
}\(r ht  eyes.  ot^er  smaller  ribs  which  are  no  less  so,  so  that  the 
quests  ar~  infinitely  winding ;  but,  generally  we  were  on  the 
scended-5  at  Buon  Convento,  and  at  Torrinieri  shall  be  on  one 
an(j  f  feeders,  which  runs  so  as  to  form  a  very  acute  angle 
jp,a  him  at  his  confluence.  Between  the  two  the  ground  is 
firown  about  in  swells  and  falls  indescribable.  The  country 
s  generally  open  corn  land,  just  cleared,  but  varied  with 
patches  of  copse,  of  heath,  and  of  vines  and  other  trees  in  the 
valleys,  and  the  farm-houses  perched  about  in  the  summit  of 
the  hills  with  their  odd  little  corn-stacks,  some  scattered  all 
over  the  fields,  and  others  making  a  belt  round  the  houses. 
II  Cavallo  Inglese  at  Buon  Convento  was  a  decent  place  as 
to  beds,  but  roguish,  as  the  small  places  always  are,  in  their 
charges.  The  Terzo  did  well,  and  brought  us  well  to  Buon 
Convento  after  all.  At  this  moment,  Monte  Alcino,  on  a  high 
mountain  on  the  right,  is  looking  splendidly  under  the  morning 
sun,  with  its  three  churches,  its  castle,  and  the  mass  of  trees 
beneath  it  Arrived  at  Torrinieri  6.15.  Left  it  6.21,  with 
four  horses,  but  only  three  are  to  be  paid  for,  which  is  all  quite 
right;  the  fourth  is  for  their  own  pleasure.  We  have  just 
crossed  the  Orcia,  and  these  great  ascents,  which  require  the 
Terzo,  are  but  shoulders  dividing  one  feeder  of  the  Ombrone 
from  another,  the  Orcia  from  the  Tressa.  We  have  had  one 
enormous  ascent,  and  descent  by  zig  and  zag  to  a  little  feeder, 
and  now  we  are  up  again  to  go  down  to  another.  On  this  in- 
termediate height,  rising  out  of  a  forest  of  olives,  with  its  old 
wall,  its  church,  with  a  fine  Norman  doorway,  and  its  castle 

tower,  stands  S.  Quirico,  on  no  river,  my  M ,  but  a  place 

beginning  with  a  Q.,  when  we  "  play  at  Geographical."  We 
are  just  under  its  walls,  with  a  mass  of  ilex  sloping  down 
from  the  foot  of  the  walls  to  the  road ;  the  machicolations  of 
the  walls  are  very  striking.  We  are  descending  towards  the 
Tressa,  a  vast  view  before  us,  bounded  by  the  mountains  of 
Radicofani.  The  hills  which  we  are  descending  are  thickly 
wooded  on  our  right,  with  the  most  picturesque  towns  on  their 
eummits ;  while  the  deep  furrows  in  this  blue  marl,  though 

*  That  is,  in  the  daily  lessons  of  Scripture,  which,  with  the  Te  Deum, 
they  u»ed  to  read  every  morning  on  starting. 


APPENDIX  D.  365 

rock  would  doubtless  be  finer,  are  yet  very  striking  in  all  the 
gorges  and  combes.  Arrived  at  La  Poderina,  that  most  strik- 
ing view,  7.45.  Left  it  7.53.  We  have  crossed  the  Tressa, 
a  rocky  stream  in  a  deep  dell  between  noble  mountains,  on 
each  side  crowned  with  the  most  picturesque  towns  and  castles. 
The  postilion  calls  the  river  the  Orcia,  and  I  think  he  is 
right ;  the  town  is  Rocca  d'Orcia ;  it  is  the  scene  I  had  noticed 
in  my  former  journal,  and  indeed  it  is  not  easy  to  be  forgotten; 
but  I  had  fancied  the  spot  had  been  at  Buon  Convento.  This 
stage  is  the  only  one  as  yet  that  could  be  called  at  all  dull ;  much 
of  it  is  through  a  low  plain,  without  trees  or  vines,  and  therefore 
it  is  now  bare  ;  in  this  plain,  however,  there  stands  one  of  the 
finest  of  oaks  by  the  road-side,  a  lonely  and  goodly  tree,  which 
has  the  plain  to  itself.  They  are  also  doing  a  very  good  work, 
in  making  a  line  of  road,  quite  in  the  plain,  to  avoid  the  many 
ups  and  downs  of  the  present  road,  in  crossing  the  valleys  of 
the  small  streams  which  run  down  into  the  main  valley.  But ' 
although  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  road  is  dull,  yet 
how  glorious  are  the  mountains  all  around !  Arrived  at  Ric- 
corsi  9.10.  Left  it  9.18.  I  was  speaking  of  the  mountains, 
and  I  am  quite  sure  that  a  scene  so  picturesque  as  that  which 
we  have  just  above  Riccorsi,  in  this  stage,  which  people  who 
read  and  sleep  through  the  country  call  dull,  can  very  rarely 
be  rivalled  in  England.  The  mountains  are  very  high,  and 
their  sides  and  banks  and  furrowing  combes,  nobly  spread  out 
before  you,  covered  mostly  with  oak  forests,  but  the  forest  to- 
ward the  plain  thinning  off  into  single  trees  till  it  gives  place 
to  the  olives  and  vines ;  and  near  the  summit  there  is  a  great 
scar  or  cliff,  on  which,  or  to  which,  sit  or  stick  as  they  can,  the 
houses  of  Campiglia,  with  its  picturesque  towers  as  usual. 
And  now  we  are  really  going  up  to  the  head  of  the  country, 
to  the  fantastic  rocks  of  Radicofani,  which  turn  the  waters  to 
the  Ombrone  and  Tiber,  and  are  visible  from  the  Ciminian 
hills.  Again  the  road  itself  is  in  the  bare  hill-side,  with 
masses  of  rock  here  and  there.  But  across  the  torrent,  the 
mountain-sides  are  clothed  more  or  less  with  trees,  in  some 
places  thickly,  and  before  us  the  hill-side  is  yellow  with  the 
still  standing  corn.  The  torrent  beds,  however,  are  here  for 
the  most  part  quite  dry.  Those  creatures  which  dropped  on 
our  carriage  yesterday  are  here  again  in  great  numbers ;  they 
call  them  Cavaletti  or  Grigli ;  they  are  a  species  of  Cicada, 
but  not  those  which  croak  on  the  trees,  and  which,  I  believe, 
are  never  seen  on  the  ground.  We  have  just  crowned  the 

31* 


366  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

summit,  and  see  before  us  the  country  towards  Rome,  and  the 
streams  going  to  the  Tiber.  The  valley  of  the  Paglia  for 
miles  lies  before  us.  Alas !  to  think  of  that  unhappy  papal 
government,  and  of  the  degraded  people  subject  to  it.  Arrived 
at  Radicofani  10.45. 

There  is  a  good  inn  here,  so  we  have  stopped  to  get  some- 
thing to  eat,  and  to  give  M some  rest,  which  she  greatly 

needs ;  and  from  here  our  way  is  in  a  manner  all  down  hill. 
Glorious  indeed  is  the  view  all  around  us,  and  there  is  also  a 
nice  garden  under  the  house,  where  I  see  an  oleander  in 
bloom,  although  our  height  above  the  Mediterranean  must  be 
very  great,  and  up  here  the  corn  is  not  ripe.  The  air  is  pure 
and  cool  enough,  as  you  may  suppose,  but  there  is  no  chill  in 
it,  and  the  flies  are  taking  liberties  with  my  face,  which  are 
disagreeable.  It  is  very  strange  to  see  so  nice  looking  an  inn 
at  this  wild  place,  but  the  movement  of  the  world  does 
wonders,  and  it  improves  even  the  mountain  of  Radicofani. 
I  have  exposed  myself  to  the  attacks  of  those  who  cannot 
bear  to  hear  of  the  movement  of  the  nineteenth  century  im- 
proving anything ;  however,  I  was  thinking  only  of  physical 
improvement  in  roads  and  inns,  which  is  a  matter  not  to  be 
disputed.  But  in  truth  the  improvement  does  go  deeper  than 
this,  and  though  the  work  is  not  all  of  God,  (and  did  even 
Christianity  itself  except  the  intermeddling  hand  of  Anti- 
christ ?)  yet  in  itself  it  is  of  God,  and  its  fruits  are  accordingly 
good  in  the  main,  though  mixed  with  evil  always,  and  though 
the  evil  sometimes  be  predominant:  sometimes  it  may  be 
alone  to  be  found ;  just  as  in  this  long  descent  which  I  see  be- 
fore me  to  Ponte  Centino  there  are  portions  of  absolutely 
steep  up-hill.  It  is  a  lying  spirit  undoubtedly  that  says  "look 
backwards."  .  • 

Viterbo,  July  8th,  1840.  —  On  May  9th,  1827,  I  entered 

Rome  last,  dearest ;  and  it  gives  me  a  thrill  to  look  out 

from  my  window  on  the  very  Ciminian  hills,  and  to  know  that 
one  stage  will  bring  us  to  the  top  of  them.  But  the  Caffe 
bids  me  stop.  Left  Viterbo  5.30.  A  clever  piccolo  has  aided 
our  carriage  well  by  leading  Terzo  round  some  very  sharp 
turnings  in  the  narrow  streets.  And  now  we  are  out  amidst 
gardens  and  olives,  with  the  Ciminian  hills  all  green  with 
their  copsewood  right  before  us.  We  are  now  amidst  the 
copsewood ;  many  single  chestnuts  and  oaks  are  still  standing ; 
the  tufts  of  gum-cistus  Salvianus  by  the  road-side  mingled  with 
the  broom  are  most  beautiful.  Long,  white  lines  of  cloud  lie 


APPENDIX  D.  367 

in  the  plains,  so  that  the  Sabine  mountains  seemed  to  rise 
exactly  from  the  sea.  And  now  a  wooded  point  rises  above 
us  of  a  very  fine  shape,  a  sort  of  spur  from  the  main  ridge 
like  Swirl  Edge  from  Helvellyn.  Here  the  oaks  and  chest- 
nuts are  fine.  Thick  wood  on  both  sides  of  the  road.  Again 
we  descend  gradually  towards  Monterossi,  Soracte,  and  the 
mountains  behind  it  finer  than  can  be  told.  We  may  now 
say  that  we  are  within  what  was  the  Roman  frontier  in  the 
middle  of  the  fourth  century,  u.c.,  for  we  have  just  crossed 
the  little  stream  which  flows  by  both  Sutrium  and  Nepete,  and 
they  were  long  the  frontier  colonies  towards  Etruria.  Here 
we  join  the  Perugia  and  Ancona  road,  and  after  the  junction 
our  ways  seem  much  improved.  And  now  we  are  ascending 
a  long  hill  into  Monterossi,  which  seems  to  stand  on  a  sort  of 
shoulder  running  down  from  the  hills  of  the  Lake  Sabatinus 
towards  the  Campagna.  I  suppose  that  this  country  must 
have  been  the  irepioiKts  of  Veii.  The  twenty-sixth  milestone 
from  Rome  stands  just  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  going  up  into 
Monterossi.  Here  they  are  threshing  their  corn  vigorously 
out  in  the  sun ;  I  should  have  thought  that  it  must  be  dry 
enough  anywhere.  Arrived  at  Monterossi  9.30,  at  the  twenty- 
fifth  milestone,  9.44.  Here  begins  the  Campagna,  and  I 
am  glad  to  find  that  my  description  of  it  in  Vol.  I.  is  quite 
correct.  Here  are  the  long  slopes  and  the  sluggish  streams 
such  as  I  have  described  them,  and  the  mountain  wall  almost 
grander  than  my  recollection  of  it.  And,  as  our  common 
broom  was  tufting  all  the  slopes  and  banks  when  I  was  here 
last  in  April  and  May,  so  now,  in  July,  we  have  our  garden 
broom  no  less  beautiful.  I  observe  that  since  we  have  joined 
the  Perugia  road,  everything  seems  in  better  style,  both  roads 
and  posting,  because  that  is  the  great  road  to  Bologna  and 
Ancona,  and  the  Sienna  road  leads  within  the  Roman  States 
to  no  place  of  consequence.  Here  is  one  of  the  lonely  Osterie 
of  the  Campagna,  but  now  smartened  up  into  the  Hotel  des 
Sept  Veines,  Sette  Vene,  strange  to  behold.  Here  we  found 
our  Neapolitan  friend,  who,  not  liking  his  horses,  had  sent 
them  back  to  Monterossi,  and  was  waiting  for  others.  The 
postilions  would  have  changed  them  for  ours,  deeming  our 
necks,  I  suppose,  of  no  consequence  ;  but  our  Neapolitan 
friend  most  kindly  advised  me  not  to  allow  them  to  change  ;  a 
piece  of  disinterested,  or  rather  self-denying  consideration,  for 
which  I  felt  much  obliged  to  him.  Strange  it  is  to  look  at 
these  upland  slopes,  so  fresh,  so  airy,  so  open,  and  to  conceive 


LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

that  malaria  can  be  here.  They  have  been  planting  trees 
here  by  the  road-side,  acacias  and  elms  and  shumacks,  a  nice 
thing  to  do,  and  perhaps  also  really  useful,  as  trees  might 
possibly  lessen  the  malaria.  We  see  the  men  who  come  to 
reap  the  crops  in  the  Campagna  sleeping  under  the  shade  by 
the  road-side ;  we  are  going  up  the  outer  rim  of  the  Baccano 
crater ;  the  road  is  a  "  via  cava,"  and  the  beauty  of  the  brooms 
and  wild  figs  is  exquisite.  Now  we  are  in  the  crater,  quite 
round,  with  a  level  bottom  about  one  mile  and  a  half  in  di- 
ameter. Arrived  at  Baccano  10.35.  Left  it  10.45.  And 
now  we  are  going  up  the  inner  rim  of  the  crater,  and  it  is  an 
odd  place  to  look  back  on.  I  put  up  Catstabber,  take  my  pen, 
and  look  with  all  my  eyes,  for  here  is  the  top  of  the  run,  and 
Rome  is  before  us,  though  as  yet  I  see  it  not.  We  have  just 
seen  it,  11.5.  S.  Peter's  within  the  horizon  line,  the  Mons 
Albanus,  the  portal  into  the  Hernican  country,  Praeneste 
Tiber,  and  the  valley  of  the  Anio,  towards  Sublaqueum.  Of 
earthly  sights  rptrov  avro  —  Athens  and  Jerusalem  are  the 
other  two — the  three  people  of  God's  election,  two  for  things 
temporal,  and  one  for  things  eternal.  Yet  even  in  the  things 
eternal  they  were  allowed  to  minister.  Greek  cultivation  and 
Roman  polity  prepared  men  for  Christianity,  as  Mahomet- 
anism  *  can  bear  witness,  for  the  East,  when  it  abandoned 
Greece  and  Rome,  could  only  reproduce  Judaism.  Mahom- 
etanism,  six  hundred  years  after  Christ,  justifies  the  wisdom 
of  God  in  Judaism  ;  proving  that  the  Eastern  man  could  bear 
nothing  more  perfect.  Here  I  see  perfectly  the  shoulder  of 
land  which  joins  the  Alban  Hills  to  the  mountains  by  Pra> 
neste,  and  through  the  gap  over  them  I  see  the  mountains  of 
the  Vols>cians.  A  long  ridge  lies  before  us,  between  us  and 
La  Storta,  but  if  we  turned  to  the  left  before  we  ascended  it, 
we  could  get  down  to  the  Tiber  without  a  hill.  And  here  I 
look  upon  Veil  (Isola  Farnese),  and  see  distinctly  the  little 
cliff  above  the  stream  which  was  made  available  for  the  old 
walls.  We  are  descending  to  the  stream  at  Osteria  del  Fosso, 
which  was  one  of  those  that  flowed  under  the  walls  of  Veii. 
And  here  at  Osteria  del  Fosso  we  have  the  little  cliffy  banks 
which  were  so  often  used  here  for  the  fortifications  of  the 
ancient  towns,  and  such  as  I  have  just  seen  in  Veii  itself.  We 


*  "  The  unworthy  idea  of  Paradise  "  in  the  Koran,  he  used  to  say,  "jus. 
tifies  the  ways  of  God  in  not  revealing  a  future  state  earlier,  since"  man  iq 
early  ages  was  not  fit  for  it." 


APPENDIX  D.  369 

are  going  up  the  ridge  from  Osteria  del  Fosso,  and  have  just 
passed  the  eleventh  milestone.  These  bare  slopes  overgrown 
with  thistles  and  fern  are  very  solemn,  while  the  bright  broom 
cheering  the  road  banks  might  be  an  image  of  God's  grace  in 
the  wilderness,  and  a  type  that  it  most  cheers  those  who  keep 
to  the  straight  road  of  duty.  Past  the  tenth  milestone,  and 
here,  apparently  with  no  descent  to  reach  to,  is  La  Storta. 
Arrived  at  La  Storta  12.4.  Left  it  12.14.  Here  is  a  Cam- 
pagna  scene,  on  the  left  a  lonely  Osteria,  and  on  the  right  one 
of  the  lonely  square  towers  of  this  district,  old  refuges  for 
men  and  cattle  in  the  middle  ages.  We  descend  gradually  ; 
the  sides  of  the  slopes  both  right  and  left  (for  we  are  on  a 
ridge)  are  prettily  clothed  with  copsewood.  I  have  just  seen 
the  Naples  road  beyond  Rome,  the  back  of  the  Monte  Mario, 
the  towers  of  the  churches  at  the  Porta  del  Popolo.  And 
now,  just  past  the  fourth  milestone,  S.  Peter's  has  opened 
from  behind  Monte  Mario,  and  we  go  down  by  zig  and  zag 
towards  the  level  of  the  Tiber.  It  brings  us  down  into  a 
pretty  green  valley  watered  by  the  Acqua  Traversa,  where, 
for  the  first  time,  we  have  a  few  vines  on  the  slope  above.  The 
Acqua  Traversa  joins  the  Tiber  above  the  Milvian  bridge,  so 
We  cross  him  and  go  up  out  of  this  little  valley  on  the  right. 
And  here  we  find  the  first  houses  which  seem  like  the  ap- 
proach to  a  city.  There  are  the  cypresses  on  the  Monte 
Mario,  and  here  is  the  Tiber  and  the  Milvian  bridge.  We 
are  crossing  the  Tiber  now,  and  now  we  are  in  the  AGEK 
ROMANUS.  Garden  walls  and  ordinary  suburb  houses  line 
the  road  on  both  sides,  but  the  Collis  Hortulorum  rises  pret- 
tily on  the  left,  with  its  little  cliffs,  its  cypresses,  copsewood, 
and  broom.  The  Porta  del  Popolo  is  in  sight,  and  then  Pass- 
port and  Dogana  must  be  minded,  so  here  I  stop  for  the 
present,  1.20. 

Rome,  July  9.  Again  this  date,  my  dearest ,  one  of 

the  most  solemn  and  interesting  to  me  that  my  hand  can  ever 
write,  and  now  even  more  interesting  than  when  I  saw  it  last. 

The  Pantheon  I  had  never  seen  before,  and  I  admire  it 
greatly ;  its  vastness,  and  the  opening  at  the  top  which  ad- 
mitted the  view  of  the  cloudless  sky,  both  struck  me  particu- 
larly. Of  the  works  of  art  at  the  Vatican,  I  ought  not  to 
speak,  but  I  was  glad  to  find  that  I  could  understand  the 
Apollo  better  than  when  I  last  saw  it. 

S.  Stefano  Rotondo  on  the  Caelian,  so  called  from  its  shape, 
consists  of  two  rows  of  concentric  pillars,  and  contains  the  old 


370  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

Mosaic  of  our  Lord,  of  which  I  spoke  in  my  former  journal 
It  exhibits  also,  in  a  series  of  pictures  all  round  the  church, 
the  martyrdoms  of  the  Christians  in  the  so-called  Persecu- 
tions, with  a  general  picture  of  the  most  eminent  martyrs  since 
the  triumph  of  Christianity.  No  doubt  many  of  the  particu- 
lar stories  thus  painted  will  bear  no  critical  examination ;  it 
is  likely  enough,  too,  that  Gibbon  has  truly  accused  the  gen- 
eral statements  of  exaggeration.  But  this  is  a  thankless  labor, 
such  as  Lingard  and  others  have  undertaken  with  respect  to 
the  St.  Bartholomew  massacre,  and  the  Irish  massacre  of  1 642. 
Divide  the  sum  total  of  reported  martyrs  by  twenty  —  by  fifty, 
if  you  will  —  but  after  all  you  have  a  number  of  persons  of 
all  ages  and  sexes  suffering  cruel  torments  and  death  for  con- 
science' sake  and  for  Christ's,  and  by  their  sufferings  manifestly, 
with  God's  blessing,  insuring  the  triumph  of  Christ's  Gospel. 
Neither  do  I  think  that  we  consider  the  excellence  of  this 
martyr  spirit  half  enough.  I  do  not  think  that  pleasure  is  a 
sin ;  *  the  Stoics  of  old,  and  the  ascetic  Christians  since,  who 
have  said  so,  (see  the  answers  of  that  excellent  man  Pope 
Gregory  the  Great  to  Augustine's  questions,  as  given  at  length 
by  Bede,)  have,  in  saying  so,  overstepped  the  simplicity  and 
the  wisdom  of  Christian  truth.  But,  though  pleasure  is  not  a 
sin,  yet  surely  the  contemplation  of  suffering  for  Christ's  sake 
is  a  thing  most  needful  for  us  in  our  days,  from  whom  in  our 
daily  life  suffering  seems  so  far  removed.  And,  as  God's 
grace  enabled  rich  and  delicate  persons,  women,  and  even 
children,  to  endure  all  extremities  of  pain  and  reproach  in 
times  past,  so  there  is  the  same  grace  no  less  mighty  now ; 
and  if  we  do  not  close  ourselves  against  it,  it  might  in  us  be 
no  less  glorified  in  a  time  of  trial.  And  that  such  time  of 
trial  will  come,  my  children,  in  your  days,  if  not  in  mine,  I 
do  believe  fully,  both  from  the  teaching  of  man's  wisdom,  and 
of  God's.  And,  therefore,  pictures  of  martyrdoms  are,  I 
think,  very  wholesome,  —  not  to  be  sneered  at,  nor  yet  to  be 
looked  on  as  a  mere  excitement,  —  but  a  sober  reminder  to  us 
of  what  Satan  can  do  to  hurt,  and  what  Christ's  grace  can 
enable  the  weakest  of  his  people  to  bear.  Neither  should  we 
forget  those  who,  by  their  sufferings,  were  more  than  con- 

*  He  had,  however,  a  great  respect  for  the  later  Stoics.  "  It  is  common 
to  ridicule  them,"  he  said;  "  but  their  triumph  over  bodily  pain  was  one  of 
the  noblest  efforts  after  good  ever  made  by  man,  without  revelation.  He 
that  said  to  pain, '  Thou  art  no  evil  to  me,  so  long  as  I  cau  endure  thee,'  it 
was  given  him  from  God." 


APPENDIX  D.  371 

querors,  not  for  themselves  only,  but  for  us,  in  securing  to  us 
the  safe  and  triumphant  existence  of  Christ's  blessed  faith  — 
in  securing  to  us  the  possibility  —  nay,  the  actual  enjoyment, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  Antichrist  of  the  Priesthood  —  of 
Christ's  holy  and  glorious  e/cicXqcria,  the  congregation  and  com- 
monwealth of  Christ's  people. 

July  12, 1840. 

10 And  I  see  Sezza  on  its  mountain  seat;  but 

here  is  a  more  sacred  spot,  Appii  Forum,  where  St.  Paul  met 
his  friends,  when,  having  landed  at  Puteoli,  he  went  on  by 
the  Appian  road  to  Rome.  Here  the  ancient  and  the  present 
roads  are  the  same, —  here,  then,  the  Apostle  Paul,  with 
Luke  and  with  Timothy,  travelled  along,  a  prisoner,  under  a 
centurion  guard,  to  carry  his  appeal  to  Caesar.  How  much 
resulted  from  that  journey,  —  the  manifestation  of  Christ's 
name  iv  S\a  TTW  irpaiTa>pia>,  the  four  precious  Epistles  ad  Ephe- 
sios,  ad  Philippenses,  ad  Colossenses,  ad  Philemona ;  and  on 
the  other  hand,  owing  to  his  long  absence,  the  growth  of  Ju- 
daism, that  is  of  priestcraft,  in  the  eastern  churches,  never, 
alas !  to  be  wholly  put  down. 

July  13,  1840. 

11 M says  that  she  never  saw  so  beautiful  a 

spot  as  Mola  di  Gaeta.  I  should  say  so  too,  in  suo  genere ; 
but  Fox  How  and  Chiavenna  are  so  different,  that  I  cannot 
compare  them ;  so  again,  are  Rome  from  S.  Pietro  in  Mon- 
torio,  —  Oxford,  from  the  pretty  field,  or  from  St.  John's  Gar- 
dens,—  London,  from  Westminster  Bridge,  and  Paris,  from 
the  Quays.  But  Mola  is  one  of  those  spots  which  are  of  a 
beauty  not  to  be  forgotten  while  one  lives. 

"  At  Mola  is  what  is  called  Cicero's  Villa.  There  is  no 
greater  folly  than  to  attempt  to  connect  particular  spots  in  this 
uncertain  way  with  great  names  ;  and  no  one,  who  represents 
to  his  own  mind  the  succession  of  events  and  ages  which  have 
passed,  will  attempt  to  do  it  upon  conjecture,  the  chances  being 
thousands  to  one  against  correctness.  There  can  be  no  tra- 
ditions, from  the  long  period  when  such  things  were  forgotten 
and  uncared  for ;  and  what  seems  to  be  tradition,  in  fact,  origi- 
nates in  what  antiquarians  have  told  the  people.  People  do 
not  enough  consider  the  long  periods  of  the  Roman  empire 
after  Augustus's  time,  —  the  century  of  the  greatest  activity 
under  Trajan,  and  the  Antonines,  when  the  Republic  and  the 
Augustan  age  were  considered  as  ancient  times,  —  then  Seve* 


872  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

rus  and  his  time,  —  then  Diocletian  and  Theodosius,  —  when 
the  Roman  laws  were  in  full  vigor." 

Naples,  July  14, 1840. 

12.  While  we  are  waiting  for  dinner,  my  dearest ,  I 

will  write  two  or  three  lines  of  journal.     Here  we  actually 
are,  looking  out  upon  what  but  presents  images  which,  with  a 
very  little  play  of  fancy,  might  all  be  shaped  into  a  fearful 
drama  of  Pleasure,  Sin,  and  Death.     The  Pleasure  is  every- 
where, —  nowhere  is  nature  more  lovely,  or  man,  as  far  as 
appears,  more  enjoying ;  the  Sin  is  in  the  sty  of  Capreze,  in  the 
dissoluteness  of  Baiae  and  Pompeii,  —  hi  the  black  treachery 
which,  in  this  ill-omened  country,  stained  the  fame  even  of 
Nelson,  —  in  the  unmatchable  horrors  of  the  White  Jacobins 
of  1799,  —  in  the  general  absence  of  any  recollection  of  piety, 
virtue,  or  wisdom,  —  for  "  he  that  is  not  with  me  is  against  me." 
And  the  Death  stands  manifest  in  his  awfulness  in  Vesuvius, 
—  in  his  loathsomeness  at  the  abominable  Campo  Santo.    Far 
be  it  from  me,  or  from  my  friends,  to  live  or  to  sojourn  long 
in  such  a  place ;  the  very  contradictory,  as  it  seems  to  me,  of 
the  Hill  Difficulty,  of  the  House  Beautiful,  and  of  the  Land 
of  Beulah.     But,  behold,  we  are  again  in  voiture,  going  along 
the  edge  of  the  sea  in  the  port  of  Naples,  and  going  out 
to  Salerno.     Clouds  are  on  the  mountains  which  form  the 
southeast  side  of  the  bay ;  but  Vesuvius  is  clear,  and  quite 
quiet,  —  not  a  wreath  of  smoke  ascends  from  him.     Since  I 
wrote  this,  in  the  last  five  minutes,  there  is  a  faint  curl  of 
smoke  visible.     Striking  it  is  to  observe  the  thousand  white 
houses  round  his  base,  and  the  green  of  copsewood  which  runs 
half-way  up  him,  and  up  to  the  very  summit  of  his  neighbor, 
the  Monte  Somma,  —  and  then  to  look  at  the  desolate  black- 
ness of  his  own  cone. 

July  15,  1840. 

13.  We  have  just  left  Pompeii,  after  having  spent  two  hours 
in  walking  over  the  ruins.     Now  what  has  struck  me  most  in 
this  extraordinary  scene,  speaking  historically  ?    That  is,  what 
knowledge  does  one  gain  from  seeing  an  ancient  town  de- 
stroyed in  the  first  century  of  the  Christian  era,  thus  laid 
open  before  us  ?     I  do  not  think  that  there  is  much.     I  ob- 
served the  streets  crossing  one  another  at  right  angles  ;  I 
observed  the  walls  of  the  town  just  keeping  the  crown  of  the 
hill,  and  the  suburbs  and  the  tombs  falling  away  directly  from 
the  gates :  I  observed  the  shops  in  front  of  the  houses,  —  the 
streets  narrow,  the  rooms  in  the  houses  very  small ;  the  dining- 


APPENDIX  D.  373 

room  in  one  of  the  best  was  twenty  feet  by  eighteen  nearly. 
The  Forum  was  large  for  the  size  of  the  town  ;  and  the  temples 
and  public  buildings  occupied  a  space  proportionably  greater 
than  with  us.  I  observed  the  Impluvium,  forming  a  small 
space  in  the  midst  of  the  Atrium.  And  I  think,  farther,  that 
Pompeii  is  just  a  thing  for  pictures  to  represent  adequately ; 
I  could  understand  it  from  Gell's  book,  but  no  book  can  give 
me  the  impressions  or  the  knowledge  which  I  gain  from  every 
look  at  the  natural  landscape.  Then,  poetically,  Pompeii  is 
to  me,  as  I  always  thought  it  would  be,  no  more  than  Pom- 
peii ;  that  is,  it  is  a  place  utterly  unpoetical.  An  Osco- Roman 
town,  with  some  touches  of  Greek  corruption,  —  a  town  of  the 
eighth  century  of  Rome,  marked  by  no  single  noble  recollec- 
tion, nor  having  —  like  the  polygonal  walls  of  Ciolano  —  the 
marks  of  a  remote  antiquity  and  a  pure  state  of  society. 
There  is  only  the  same  sort  of  interest  with  which  one  would 
see  the  ruins  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  but  indeed  there  is 
less.  One  is  not  authorized  to  ascribe  so  solemn  a  character 
to  the  destruction  of  Pompeii ;  it  is  not  a  peculiar  monument 
of  God's  judgments,  it  is  the  mummy  of  a  man  of  no  worth 
or  dignity,  —  solemn,  no  doubt,  as  everything  is  which  brings 
life  and  death  into  such  close  connection,  but  with  no  proper 
and  peculiar  solemnity,  like  places  rich  in  their  own  proper 
interest,  or  sharing  in  the  general  interest  of  a  remote  antiquity, 
or  an  uncorrupted  state  of  society.  The  towns  of  the  Ciolano 
are  like  the  tomb  of  a  child,  —  Pompeii  is  like  that  of  Lord 
Chesterfield. 

July  18,  1840. 

14.  The  panorama  of  mountains,  and  the  infinite  variety 
of  light  and  shade  caused  by  a  very  bright  sun  and  very  black 
clouds,  cannot  be  described.  Aquila  is  seen  rising  on  its  hills 
on  the  left  bank  of  the  Aternus,  about  nine  miles  off.  Behold 
something  of  a  section  of  the  plain  and  valley,  if  I  can  make 

them  intelligible .     By  the  way  I  saw  the  Tratturo  delle 

Pecore,  or  Cattle  Path,  "  Callis,"  which  Keppel  Craven  men- 
tions, in  our  upland  plain,  a  broad  marked  track  on  the  turf, 
which  ran  close  by  the  road  for  a  space,  and  then  passed  it. 
We  are  now  down  fairly  in  the  valley,  at  the  125th  mile,  and 
the  Gran  Sasso  d'  Italia,  or  Monte  Como,  the  highest  of  the 
Apennines,  9,000  feet  above  the  level  of  the  sea,  spreads  out 

his  huge  mass  just  behind  the  near  hills  of  this  valley . 

I  have  endeavored  to  represent  his  outline,  and  his  enormous 
ribs  and  deep  combes,  but  I  must  not  forget  his  verdure  ;  for 
VOL.  ii.  32 


374  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

as  the  sun  shines  upon  him,  the  turf  upon  his  swells  and 
ridge  looks  green  as  Loughrigg,  the  peak  looks  as  I  have  so 
often  seen  Fail-field  when  a  slight  snow  has  fallen  :  —  the  snow 
lies  where  the  steepness  of  the  cliffs  will  let  it  lie.  We  are 
in  a  fresh  valley  amidst  streams  of  running  water :  but  there 
is  malaria  here.  And  now,  6.56,  we  are  just  beginning  the 
ascent  of  the  hill  on  which  Aquila  itself  is  built.  Nothing 
can  be  fresher  than  everything  around  us, — the  vines  on  the 
hills,  the  deep  green  of  the  poplars  and  willows  that  fringe  the 
streams,  and  the  bright  grass  of  a  little  patch  of  meadow. 
Then  the  mountains  rise  behind  on  all  sides,  their  tops  still 
gleaming  with  the  sun  which  is  set  to  us  in  the  valley.  (129th 
mile,  within  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  the  entrance  into  Aquila,) 
while  the  mountains  to  the  northwest  are  steeped  in  one  of  the 
richest  glows  of  crimson  that  I  ever  saw.  Passports  at  Aquila 
gate,  or  rather  at  the  gate  of  the  old  nipi/Bokos ;  but  Aquila 
has  shrunk,  and  a  long  avenue  through  corn-fields  leads  from 
the  gate  of  what  was  the  town  to  the  beginning  of  the  part 
inhabited  now. 

July  19.  Left  Aquila  6.8,  passing  under  the  citadel  and 
with  the  Gran  Sasso  facing  us  in  all  his  brightness.  —  I  did 
not  see  his  main  summit  last  night  after  all,  for  it  was  behind, 
and  the  clouds  covered  it ;  so  I  have  put  it  in  slightly  this 
morning.  We  have  got  to-day,  not  a  Cheval  but  an  Homme 
de  Renfort,  to  help  the  carriage  through  the  difficulties  of  the 
pass  of  Androdoco.  And  now,  dearest,  it  is  Sunday  morning, 
and  a  brighter  day  never  shone :  the  clouds  ar.d  cold  have 
vanished,  and  summer  seems  returned.  May  God  bless  you 
all,  my  darlings,  and  us  your  absent  parents,  —  to  whom  the 
roads  of  Italy  on  this  day  are  far  less  grateful  than  the  chapel 
of  Rydal  or  of  Rugby.  It  is  here  amongst  strangers  or  ene- 
mies that  I  could  most  zealously  defend  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land :  —  here  one  may  look  only  at  its  excellences ;  whereas  at 
home,  and  amongst  ourselves,  it  is  idle  to  be  puffing  what  our 
own  business  is  rather  to  mend  and  to  perfect. 

July  20.  1840. 

15.  Rieti  is  so  screened  by  the  thousand  elms  to  which  its 
vines  are  trained,  that  you  hardly  can  see  the  town  till  you 
are  in  it.  It  stands  in  the  midst  of  the  "  Rosea  Rura,"  this 
marvellous  plain  of  the  Velinus,  a  far  fairer  than  the  Thessa- 
lian  Tempe.  Immediately  above  it  are  some  of  the  Rocky 
but  exquisitely  soft  hills  of  the  country,  —  so  soft  and  sweet 
that  they  are  like  the  green  hills  round  Como,  or  the  delicate 


APPENDIX  D.  375 

screen  of  the  head  of  Derwentwater ;  the  Apennines  have 
lost  all  their  harsher  and  keep  only  their  finer  features,  — 
their  infinite  beauty  of  outline,  and  the  endless  enwrappings  of 
their  combes,  their  cliffs,  and  their  woods.  But  here  is  water 
everywhere,  which  gives  a  universal  freshness  to  everything. 
Rieti,  I  see,  stands  just  at  an  opening  of  the  hills,  so  that  you 
may  catch  its  towers  on  the  sky  between  them.  We  have 
crossed  the  Velino  to  its  left  bank,  just  below  its  confluence 
with  the  Torrano,  the  ancient  Tereno,  as  I  believe,  up  whose 
valley  we  have  just  been  looking,  and  see  it  covered  with 
corn,  standing  in  shocks,  but  not  carried.  It  has  been  often 
a  very  striking  sight  to  see  the  little  camp  of  stacks  raised 
round  a  farm-house,  and  to  see  multitudes  of  people  as- 
sembled, threshing  their  corn,  or  treading  it  out  with  mules' 
or  horses'  feet.  Still  the  towns  stand  nobly  on  the  mountains. 
Behold  Grecio  before  us,  —  two  church-towers,  and  the  round 
towers  of  its  old  bastions,  and  the  line  of  its  houses  on  the 
edge  of  one  cliff,  and  with  other  cliffs  rising  behind  it.  The 
road  has  chosen  to  go  up  a  shoulder  of  hill  on  the  left  of  the 
valley,  for  no  other  visible  reason  than  to  give  travellers  a 
station  like  the  Bowness  Terrace,  from  which  they  might 
have  a  general  view  over  it.  It  is  really  like  "  the  garden  of 
the  Lord,"  and  "  the  Seraph  guard "  might  keep  their  watch 
on  the  summit  of  the  opposite  mountains,  which,  seen  under 
the  morning  sun,  are  invested  in  a  haze  of  heavenly  light, 
as  if  shrouding  a  more  than  earthly  glory.  Truly  may  one 
feel  with  Von  Canitz,*  that  if  the  glory  of  God's  perishable 
works  be  so  great,  what  "must  be  the  glory  of  the  imperish- 
able, —  what  infinitely  more  of  Him  who  is  the  author  of 
both !  And  if  I  feel  thrilling  through  me  the  sense  of  this 
outward  beauty  —  innocent,  indeed,  yet  necessarily  uncon- 
scious, —  what  is  the  sense  one  ought  to  have  of  moral  beauty, 
—  of  God  the  Holy  Spirit's  creation,  —  of  humbleness  and 
truth,  and  self-devotion  and  love !  Much  more  beautiful,  be- 
cause made  truly  after  God's  image,  are  the  forms  and  colors 
of  kind  and  wise  and  holy  thoughts,  and  words,  and  actions ; 
more  truly  beautiful  is  one  hour  of  old  Mrs.  Price's  f  patient 
waiting  for  the  Lord's  time,  and  her  cheerful  and  kind  interest 
in  us  all,  feeling  as  if  she  owed  ,ris  anything,  —  than  this 
glorious  valley  of  the  Velinus.  For  this  will  pass  away,  and 

*  See  the  story  and  poem  in  Serm.  vol.  iv.  note  B. 
(•  An  old  womaii  in  the  Almshouses  at  Rugby,  alluded  to  vol-  i.  p.  216j 
loL  ii.  p.  289. 


876  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

that  will  not  pass  away :  but  that  is  not  the  great  point ;  — 
believe  with  Aristotle  that  this  should  abide,  and  that  should 
perish ;  still  there  is  in  the  moral  beauty,  an  inherent  excel- 
lence which  the  natural  beauty  cannot  have ;  for  the  moral 
beauty  is  actually,  so  to  speak,  God,  and  not  merely  His 
work ;  His  living  and  conscious  ministers  and  servants  are  — 
it  is  permitted  us  to  say  so  —  the  temples  of  which  the  light 
is  God  Himself. 

July  20,  1840. 

16.  "We  have  now  one  of  the  best  possible  specimens  of  the 
ancient  mountain  towns  close  above  us.  This  is  Torri,  stand- 
ing on  the  top  of  a  hill,  and  stretching  down  towards  the 
plain.  Its  churches  are  at  the  summit  like  an  acropolis,  and 
from  thence  its  walls  diverge  down  the  hill,  and  are  joined  by 
a  cross  wall,  the  base  of  the  triangle,  near,  but  not  at  the 

plain .  The  walls  are  perfect,  and,  there  being  no 

suburbs,  the  town  is  quite  distinctly  marked,  standing  in  a 
mass  of  olives  around  it ;  and  below  I  see  that  it  is  not  quite 
a  triangle,  but  rather  a  triangle  stuck  on  to  a  rule  circle. 
Spoleto  is  still  beautifully  visible  at  the  end  of  the  plain  be- 
hind us.  I  can  conceive  Hannibal's  Numidians  trying  to  carry 
it  avrofiocl  after  they  had  carried  all  this  delicious  plain  ;  and 
if  the  colony  shut  its  gates  against  them,  and  was  not  panic- 
struck  by  the  terror  of  Thrasymenus,  it  did  well,  and  deserved 
honor,  as  did  Nola  in  like  case,  although  Marcellus's  son  lied 
about  his  father's  life  no  less  valiantly  than  he  did  about  his 
death. 

Arrived  at  Ponte  Centesimo  5.51.  Left  it  6.2.  The  valley 
narrow,  and  the  oaks  very  nice  on  the  hill-sides.  The  road 
ascends  steeply  from  Ponte  Centesimo  along  the  side  of  the 
hills  as  a  terrace.  The  road  is  now  very  beautiful,  the  hills 
on  both  sides  are  wooded,  and  the  turf  under  them  is  soft  in 
the  morning  sun.  We  have  still  the  vines  and  the  maize,  but 
I  doubt  whether  we  shall  see  many  more  olives ;  for  from 
here  to  the  top  of  the  Apennines  it  will  be  too  high  for  them, 
and  they  have  the  good  taste  not  to  grow  in  that  mongrel 
Italy  between  the  Apennines  and  the  Alps.  Here  we  cross  a 
great  feeder  of  the  main  stream,  great  in  width  of  bed,  but 
very  small  in  his  supply  of  water,  while  the  main  stream,  like 
an  honest  man,  seems  to  be  no  more  that  he  is,  has  a  little 
channel,  but  fills  it  with  water.  Behold  meadows  by  the 
stream  side,  and  mowing  going  forward ;  and,  0  marvellous 
for  a  summer  scent  in  Italy  !  the  smell  of  fresh  hay !  It  ia 


APPENDIX  D.  377 

quite  lovely,  the  hill-sides  like  Rydal  Park,  and  the  valley 
like  our  great  hay-fields,  with  cattle  feeding  freely ;  but  still 
the  Apennine  character  of  endless  dells  and  combes  in  the 
mountain  sides,  which  give  a  character  of  variety  and  beauty 
to  the  details  of  the  great  landscape,  quite  peculiar  to  central 
Italy.  We  have  had  no  stage  like  this  since  we  have  entered 
Italy,  and  it  goes  on  still  with  the  same  beauty.  And  now  we 
have  crossed  our  beautiful  stream,  and  are  going  up  a  little 
valley  to  our  right,  in  which  stands  Nocera.  I  did  not  notice 
when  we  arrived  at  Nocera,  but  we  left  it  7.30.  If  for  a 
moment  the  country  in  the  preceding  stage  could  have  made 
us  forget  that  we  were  in  Italy,  the  town  of  Nocera  would 
soon  have  reminded  us  of  it ;  standing  on  a  hill  as  usual,  and 
with  all  its  characteristic  style  of  building.  A  few  olives,  too, 
were  and  are  still  to  be  seen,  and  the  vines  are  luxuriant. 
We  went  up  a  steep  hill,  and  down  a  steeper  out  of  Nocera, 
to  get  out  of  the  valley  of  the  Nocera  feeder,  and  to  come 
again  into  the  valley  of  our  old  friend  the  Calcignolo ;  but 
now  it  is  very  wide  and  we  are  not  near  his  stream,  but  on  the 
roots  of  the  mountains,  with  a  wide  view  right  and  left  of 
upland  slopes,  corn,  and  vines,  and  the  hills  beautifully 
wooded,  and  the  combes  delicious,  and  water  trickling  down, 
or  rather  running  in  every  little  stream  bed.  We  have  had 
much  up  and  down  over  the  swellings  and  sinkings  of  the  hill- 
sides and  combes,  but  as  Terzo  is  gone  back,  our  way,  I  pre- 
sume, will  now  be  smoother.  As  I  now  sit  between  Guisano 
and  Gualdo,  I  see  the  valley  or  upland  plain  in  which  we  are 
stretching  away  quite  to  the  central  ridge,  which  sinks  at  that 
point  perceptibly,  so  that  the  Apennines  are  here  penetrated 
from  the  south  with  no  trouble.  Even  here  I  see  a  few  olives, 
but  the  vines  and  maize  grow  freely  over  the  whole  country,  and 
the  hills  are  beautifully  wooded,  so  that  a  more  delightful  or 
liveable  region  is  not  easily  to  be  found.  Compare  this  pass 
of  the  Apennines  with  that  between  Isermia  and  Castel  di 
Sangro,  or  with  the  tremendous  descent  from  the  Five-mile 
plain  to  Sulmona.  We  descend  a  steep  hill  into  the  combe, 
in  which  is  Gualdo,  and  arrive  at  the  post  9.0.  I  did  not 
notice  our  leaving  it,  because  there  was  a  dispute  about  a 
Terzo.  We  have  just  passed  a  road,  going  to  Gubbio  Igu- 
viuin,  so  famous  for  its  tables  in  the  Umbrian  language,  but 
some  of  them  written  in  the  Latin  character.  Still  ups  and 
downs  perpetual,  but  fresh  water  everywhere,  which  freshens 
the  whole  landscape,  and  it  is  truly  beautiful.  Still  I  see  a 

32* 


378  LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

few  olives  on  the  hill-side  above  us,  but  they  must  be  nearly 
the  last.  Here  is  another  such  descent  into  the  combe,  on 
the  opposite  side  of  which  stands  Sigillo,  and  still  here  are 
the  olives.  Arrived  at  Sigillo  10.44.  Left  it  11.0.  Still 
the  same  beautiful  plain,  corn,  and  maize,  and  festooning 
vines,  although  we  are  on  high  ground,  and  going  to  cross  the 
main  ridge  of  the  Apennines  with  no  Terzo;  and  still  olives, 
while  fine  oaks  are  scattered  over  the  plain,  and  raise  their 
higher  foliage  above  the  universal  green  of  the  young  trees 
where  the  vines  are  trained.  The  road  has  continued  steal- 
ing up  along  the  sides  of  the  hills  till  we  are  nearly  arrived  at 
the  head  of  the  valley,  and  also  at  the  extremity  of  cultiva- 
tion, for  only  a  thin  belt  of  vines  now  intervenes  between  us 
and  the  bare  hill-side.  And  yet  there  are  olives  even  here, 
and  the  oaks  are  quite  beautiful ;  and  walnuts  are  intermixed 
with  them.  The  road  turns  left  across  the  valley,  to  go 
round  a  spur  or  shoulder  which  runs  out  from  the  hills  on  the 
right ;  how  or  where  we  crossed  the  watershed  I  do  not  yet 

see. We  have  turned  our  spur  and  the  road  goes  right, 

and  the  watershed  opens  before  us, — just  a  straight  line  be- 
tAveen  the  hills,  and  closing  up  the  valley  as  with  a  dam ;  — 
exactly  as  in  ascending  Winster  we  find  the  top  of  the  valley, 
just  before  going  down  upon  Windermere.  Yet  one  or  two 
olives  are  to  be  found  even  here,  and  the  vines  and  maize  are 
everywhere.  I  know  of  no  other  such  passage  of  a  great 
mountain  chain,  preserving  actually  up  to  the  very  watershed 
all  the  richness  of  a  southern  valley,  and  yet  with  the  fresh- 
ness of  a  mountain  region  too.  And  here  we  are  on  the 
"  ipsissimum  divortium,"  still  amidst  the  trailing  vines ;  and 
here  is  La  Schezzia,  on  a  stream  which  is  going  to  the 
Adriatic. 

Banks  of  the  Metaurns,  July  21, 1840. 

1 7.  "  Livy  says,  '  the  farther  Hasdrubal  got  from  the  sea 
the  steeper  became  the  banks  of  the  river.'  We  noticed 
some  steep  banks,  but  probably  they  were  much  higher  twenty- 
three  centuries  ago ;  for  all  rivers  have  a  tendency  to  raise 
themselves,  from  accumulations  of  gravel,  &c. ;  the  windings 
of  the  stream,  also,  would  be  much  more  as  Livy  describes 
them,  in  the  natural  state  of  the  river.  The  present  aspect 
of  this  tract  of  the  country  is  the  result  of  2,000  years  of  civi- 
lization, and  would  be  very  different  in  those  times.  There 
would  be  much  of  natural  forest  remaining,  the  only  cultiva- 
tion being  the  square  patches  of  the  Roman  messores,  and 


APPENDIX  D.  379 

these  only  on  the  best  land.  The  whole  plain  would  look  wild, 
like  a  new  and  half-settled  country.  One  of  the  greatest 
physical  changes  on  the  earth  is  produced  by  the  extermina- 
tion of  carnivorous  animals ;  for  then  the  graminivorous  be- 
comes so  numerous  as  to  eat  up  all  the  young  trees,  so  that  the 
forests  rapidly  diminish,  except  those  trees  which  they  do  not 
eat,  as  pines  and  firs." 

July  23,  1840. 

18.  Between  Faenza  and  Imola,  just  now,  I  saw  a  large 
building  standing  back  from  the  road,  on  the  right,  with  two 
places  somewhat  like  lodges  in  front,  on  the  road-side.  On 
one  of  them  was  the  inscription  "  Labor  omnia  vicit,"  and  the 
lines  about  iron  working,  ending  "  Argutae  lamina  serrae."  On 
the  other  were  Horace's  lines  about  drinking,  without  fear  of 
"  insanae  leges."  Therefore  I  suppose  that  these  buildings 
were  an  iron-foundry,  and  a  public,  or  cafe ;  but  the  classical 
inscriptions  seemed  to  me  characteristic  of  that  foolery  of 
classicalism  which  marks  the  Italians,  and  infects  those  with 
us  who  are  called  "  elegant  scholars."  It  appears  to  me  that 
in  Christian  Europe  the  only  book  from  which  quotations  are 
always  natural  and  good  as  inscriptions  for  all  sorts  of  places, 
is  the  Bible ;  because  every  calling  of  life  has  its  serious  side, 
if  it  be  not  sinful ;  and  a  quotation  from  the  Bible  relating  to 
it,  is  taking  it  on  this  serious  side,  which  is  at  once  a  true  side, 
and  a  most  important  one.  But  iron-foundries  and  publics 
have  no  connection  with  mere  book  literature,  which  to  the 
people  concerned  most  with  either,  is  a  thing  utterly  unconge- 
nial. And  inscriptions  on  such  places  should  be  for  those 
who  most  frequent  them  ;  a  literary  man  writing  up  something 
upon  them,  for  other  literary  men  to  read,  is  like  the  imperti- 
nence of  two  scholars  talking  to  each  other  in  Latin  at  a  coach 
dinner. 

Bologna,  July  23, 1840. 

19 And  now  this  is  the  last  night,  I  trust,  in  which 

I  shall  sleep  in  the  Pope's  dominions  ;  for  it  is  impossible  not 
to  be  sickened  with  a  government  such  as  this,  which  dis- 
^harges  no  one  function  decently.  The  ignorance  of  the  peo- 
ple is  prodigious,  —  how  can  it  be  otherwise?  The  book- 
sellers' shops  sad  to  behold,  —  the  very  opposite  of  that  scribe, 
instructed  to  the  kingdom  of  God,  who  was  to  bring  out  of 
his  treasures  things  new  and  old,  —  these  scribes,  not  of  the 
kingdom  of  God,  bring  out  of  their  treasures  nothing  good, 
either  new  or  old,  but  the  mere  rubbish  of  the  past  and  the 


380  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

present.  Other  governments  may  see  an  able  and  energetic 
sovereign  arise,  to  whom  God  may  give  a  long  reign,  so  that 
what  he  began  in  youth  he  may  live  to  complete  in  old  age. 
But  here  every  reign  must  be  short ;  for  every  sovereign 
comes  to  the  throne  an  old  man,  and  with  no  better  educa- 
tion than  that  of  a  priest.  Where,  then,  can  there  be  hope 
under  such  a  system,  so  contrived  as  it  should  seem  for  every 
evil  end,  and  so  necessarily  exclusive  of  good  ?  I  could  muse 
long  and  deeply  on  the  state  of  this  country,  but  it  is  not  my 
business  ;  neither  do  I  see,  humanly  speaking,  one  gleam  of 
hope.  "1517,"  said  Niebuhr, "  must  precede  1 688  ; "  but  where 
are  the  symptoms  of  1517  here  ?  And  if  one  evil  spirit  be  cast 
out,  there  are  but  seven  others  yet  more  evil,  it  may  be,  ready 
to  enter.  Wherefore,  I  have  no  sympathy  with  the  so-called 
Liberal  party  here  any  more  than  has  Bunsen.  They  are  but 
types  of  the  counter  evil  of  Popery,  —  that  is,  of  Jacobinism. 
The  two  are  obverse  and  reverse  of  the  coin,  —  the  imprint- 
ing of  one  type  on  the  one  side,  necessarily  brings  out  the 
other  on  the  other  side :  and  so  in  a  perpetual  series ;  for 
[Newmanism]  leads  to  [Socialism],  and  [Socialism]  leads  to 
[Newmanism],  —  the  eternal  oscillations  of  the  drunken 
11  lima,  - —  the  varying  vices  and  vileness  of  the  slave,  and  the 
slave  broken  loose.  "  Half  of  our  virtue,"  says  Homer,  "  is 
torn  away  when  a  man  becomes  a  slave,"  and  the  other  half 
goes  when  he  becomes  a  slave  broken  loose.  Wherefore  may 
God  grant  us  freedom  from  all  idolatry,  whether  of  flesh  or 
of  spirit ;  that  fearing-  Him  *  and  loving  Him,  we  may  fear 
and  bow  down  before  no  idol,  and  never  worshipping  what 
ought  not  to  be  worshipped,  may  so  escape  the  other  evil  of 
not  worshipping  what  ought  to  be  worshipped.  Good  night, 
my  darlings. 

July  24,  1840. 

20.  As  we  are  going  through  this  miserable  state  of  Mo- 
dena,  it  makes  me  feel  most  strongly  what  it  is  to  be  iXfvQtpas 
«roXca>f  TroXiTTjr.  What  earthly  thing  could  induce  me  to 
change  the  condition  of  an  English  private  gentleman  for  any 
conceivable  rank  of  fortune,  or  authority,  in  Modena  ?  How 
much  of  my  nature  must  I  surrender;  how  many  faculties 
must  consent  to  abandon  their  exercise  before  the  change  could 
be  other  than  intolerable  !  Feeling  this,  one  can  understand 


*  "  He  fears  God  thoroughly,  and  he  fears  neither  man  nor  Devil  beside,"1 
was  his  characteristic  description  of  a  thoroughly  courageous  man. 


APPENDIX  D.  881 

the  Spartan  answer  to  the  Great  King's  satrap  :  "  Hadst  thou 
known  what  freedom  was,  thou  wouldst  advise  us  to  defend  it, 
not  with  swords,  but  with  axes."  Now  there  are  some,  Eng- 
lishmen unhappily,  but  most  unworthy  to  be  so,  who  affect  to 
talk  of  freedom,  and  a  citizen's  rights  and  duties,  as  things 
about  which  a  Christian  should  not  care.  Like  all  their  other 
doctrines,  this  comes  out  of  the  shallowness  of  their  little 
minds,  "  understanding  neither  what  they  say,  nor  whereof 
they  affirm."  True  it  is,  that  St.  Paul,  expecting  that  the 
world  was  shortly  to  end,  tells  a  man  not  to  care  even  if  he 
were  in  a  state  of  personal  slavery.  That  is  an  endurable  evil 
which  will  shortly  cease,  not  in  itself  only,  but  in  its  conse- 
quences. But  even  for  the  few  years  during  which  he  sup- 
posed the  world  would  exist,  he  says,  "  if  thou  mayest  be 
made  free,  use  it  rather."  For  true  it  is  that  a  great  part  of 
the  virtues  of  human  nature  can  scarcely  be  developed  in  a 
state  of  slavery,  whether  personal  or  political.  The  passive 
virtues  may  exist,  the  active  ones  suffer.  Truth,  too,  suffers 
especially  ;  if  a  man  may  not  declare  his  convictions  when  he 
wishes  to  do  so,  he  learns  to  conceal  them  also  for  his  own 
convenience ;  and  from  being  obliged  to  play  the  hypocrite 
for  others,  he  learns  to  lie  on  his  own  account.  And  as  the 
ceasing  to  lie  is  mentioned  by  St.  Paul  as  one  of  the  first 
marks  of  the  renewed  nature,  so  the  learning  to  lie  is  one  of 

the  surest  marks  of  nature  unrenewed True  it  is, 

that  the  first  Christians  lived  under  a  despotism,  and  yet  that 
truth,  and  the  active  virtues,  were  admirably  developed  in 
them.  But  the  first  manifestation  of  Christianity  was  in  all 
respects  of  a  character  so  extraordinary  as  abundantly  to 
make  up  for  the  absence  of  more  ordinary  instruments  for  the 
elevation  of  the  human  mind.  It  is  more  to  the  purpose  to 
observe,  that  immediately  after  the  Apostolic  times,  the  total 
absence  of  all  civil  self-government  was  one  great  cause  which 
ruined  the  government  of  the  Church  also,  and  prepared  men 
for  the  abominations  of  the  priestly  dominion ;  while,  on  the 
other  hand,  Guizot  has  well  shown  that  one  great  cause  of  the 
superiority  of  the  Church  to  the  heathen  world  was  because, 
in  the  Church  alone,  there  was  a  degree  of  freedom  and  a 
semblance  of  political  activity ;  the  great  bishops,  Athana- 
sius  and  Augustine,  although  subjects  of  a  despotic  ruler  in 
the  State,  were  themselves  free  citizens  and  rulers  of  a  great 
society,  in  the  management  of  which  all  the  political  facul- 
ties of  the  human  mind  found  sufficient  exercise.  But  when 


882  LIFE  OF   DR.   ARNOLD. 

the  Church  is  lost  in  the  weakness  and  falsehood  of  a  priest 
hood,  it  can  no  longer  furnish  such  a  field,  and  there  is  the 
greater  need  therefore  of  political  freedom.  But  the  only  per- 
fect and  entirely  wholesome  freedom  is  where  the  Church  and 
the  State  are  both  free,  and  both  one.  Then,  indeed,  there 

is  Civitas  Dei,  then  there  is  dp/orr;  *cal  reXfiorarTj  TT;  TroXtTei'^. 
And  now  this  discussion  has  brought  me  nearly  half  through 
this  Duchy  of  Modena,  for  we  must  be  more  than  half-way 
from  Rubbiero  to  Reggio. 

Canton  Ticino,  July  25,  1840. 

21.  We  have  now  just  passed  the  Austrian  frontier,  and 
are  entered  into  Switzerland,  that  is,  into  the  Canton  Ticino, — 
Switzerland  politically,  but  Italy  still,  and  for  a  long  time  geo- 
graphically. In  comparing  this  country  with  Central  Italy,  I 
observe  the  verdure  of  the  grass  here,  and  the  absence  of  the 
olive,  and  mostly  of  the  fig,  and  the  comparative  rarity  of  the 
vine.  Again,  the  villages  are  more  scattered  over  the  whole 
landscape,  and  not  confined  to  the  mountains  ;  and  the  houses 
themselves,  white  and  large  and  with  overhanging  roofs,  and 
standing  wide  and  free,  have  no  resemblance  to  the  dark 
masses  of  uncouth  buildings  which  are  squee  sed  together  upon 
the  scanty  surface  of  their  mountain  platforms  in  Central  Italy. 
Here,  too,  is  running  water  in  every  field,  —  which  keeps  up 
this  eternal  freshness  of  green.  But  in  central  Italy  all  the 
forms  are  more  picturesque,  the  glens  are  deeper,  the  hills  are 
bolder,  and  at  the  same  time  softer,  besides  the  indescribable 
charm  thrown  over  every  scene  there  by  the  recollection  of  its 
antiquities.  Still,  I  am  not  sure  that  I  could  justify  to  another 
person  my  own  preference  beyond  all  comparison  of  the 
country  between  Antrodoco  and  Terni  over  this  between 
Como  and  Lugano.  Mola  di  Gaeta,  Naples,  Terracina,  and 
Vietri,  having  the  sea  in  their  landscape,  cannot  fairly  be 
brought  into  comparison. 

July  28, 1840. 

Left  Amsteg  6.50.  The  beauty  of  the  lower  part  of  this 
valley  is  perfect.  The  morning  is  fine,  so  that  we  see  the  tops 
of  the  mountains,  which  rise  9,000  feet  above  the  sea  directly 
from  the  valley.  Huge  precipices,  crowned  with  pines,  rising 
out  of  pines,  and  with  pines  between  them,  succeed  below  to 
the  crags  and  glaciers.  Then  in  the  valley  itself,  green  hows, 
with  walnuts  and  pears,  and  wild  cherries,  and  the  gardens  of 
these  picturesque  Swiss  cottages,  scattered  about  over  them ; 
and  the  roaring  Reuss,  the  only  inharmonious  element  where 


APPENDIX  D.  .        383 

he  is,  —  yet  he  himself  not  incapable  of  being  made  harmo- 
nious if  taken  in  a  certain  point  of  view,  at  the  very  bottom 
of  all.  This  is  the  Canton  Uri  one  of  the  Wald  Staaten,  or 
Forest  Cantons,  which  were  the  original  germ  of  the  Swiss 
confederacy.  But  Uri,  like  Sparta,  has  to  answer  the  question, 
what  has  mankind  gained  over  and  above  the  ever-precious 
example  of  noble  deeds,  from  Murgarten,  Sempach,  or  Ther- 
mopylae ?  What  the  world  has  gained  by  Salamis  and  Plataea, 
and  by  Zama,  is  on  the  other  hand  no  question,  any  more  than 
it  ought  to  be  a  question  what  the  world  has  gained  by  the 
defeat  of  Philip's  armada,  or  by  Trafalgar  and  Waterloo. 
But  if  a  nation  only  does  great  deeds  that  it  may  live,  and 
does  not  show  some  worthy  object  for  which  it  has  lived,  — 
and  Uri  and  Switzerland  have  shown  but  too  little  of  any  such, 
—  then  our  sympathy  with  the  great  deeds  of  their  history 
can  hardly  go  beyond  the  generation  by  which  those  deeds 
were  performed ;  and  I  cannot  help  thinking  of  the  mercenary 
Swiss  of  Novara  and  Marignano,  and  of  the  oppression  exer- 
cised over  the  Italian  bailiwicks  and  the  Pays  de  Vaud,  and 
all  the  tyrannical  exclusiveness  of  these  little  barren  oligar- 
chies, as  much  as  of  the  heroic  deeds  of  the  three  men,  Tell  and 
his  comrades,  or  the  self-devotion  of  my  namesake  of  Wink- 
elried,  when  at  Sempach  he  received  into  his  breast  "  a  sheaf 
of  Austrian  spears." 

Steamer  on  the  Lake  of  Luzern,  July  29, 1840. 
22.  We  arrived  at  Fluelen  about  half  past  eight,  and  having 
had  some  food,  and  most  commendable  food  it  was,  we  are 
embarked  on  the  Lake  of  Luzern,  and  have  already  passed 
Brunnen,  and  are  outside  the  region  of  the  high  Alps.  It 
would  be  difficult  certainly  for  a  Swiss  to  admire  our  lakes, 
because  he  would  ask,  what  is  there  here  which  we  have  not, 
and  which  we  have  not  on  a  larger  scale  ?  I  cannot  deny  that 
the  meadows  here  are  as  green  as  ours,  the  valleys  richer,  the 
woods  thicker,  the  cliffs  grander,  the  mountains  by  measure- 
ment twice  or  three  times  higher.  And  if  Switzerland  were 
my  home  and  country,  the  English  lakes  and  mountains  would 
certainly  never  tempt  me  to  travel  to  see  them,  destitute  as 
they  are  of  all  historical  interest.  In  fact,  Switzerland  is  to 
Europe,  what  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland  are  to  Lan- 
cashire and  Yorkshire ;  the  general  summer  touring-place. 
But  all  country  that  is  actually  beautiful  is  capable  of  afford- 
inf  to  those  who  live  in  it  the  highest  pleasure  of  scenery, 


884         .  LIFE   OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

which  no  country,  however  beautiful,  can  do  to  those  who 
merely  travel  in  it ;  and  thus  while  I  do  not  dispute  the  higher 
interest  of  Switzerland  to  a  Swiss,  (no  Englishman  ought  to 
make  another  country  his  home,  and  therefore  I  do  not  speak 
of  Englishmen,)  I  must  still  maintain  that  to  me  Fairfield  is 
a  hundred  times  more  beautiful  than  the  Righi,  and  Winder- 
mere  than  the  Lake  of  the  Four  Cantons.  Not  that  I  think 
this  is  overvalued  by  travellers,  it  cannot  be  so;  but  most 
people  undervalue  greatly  what  mountains  are  when  they 
form  a  part  of  our  daily  life,  and  combine  not  with  our  hours 
of  leisure,  of  wandering,  and  of  enjoyment,  but  with  those  of 
home  life,  of  work,  and  of  duty.  Luzern,  July  29.  We  ac- 
complished the  passage  of  the  lake  in  about  three  hours,  and 
most  beautiful  it  was  all  the  way.  And  now,  as  in  1827, 1 
recognize  the  forms  of  our  common  English  country,  and 
should  be  bidding  adieu  to  mountains,  and  preparing  merely 
for  our  Rugby  lanes  and  banks,  and  Rugby  work,  were  it  not 
for  the  delightful  excrescence  of  a  tour  which  we  hope  to 
make  to  Fox  How,  and  three  or  four  days'  enjoyment  of  our 
own  mountains,  hallowed  by  our  English  Church,  and  hal- 
lowed scarcely  less  by  our  English  Law.  Alas,  the  difference 
between  Church  and  Law,  and  clergy  and  lawyers ;  but  so  in 
human  things  the  concrete  ever  adds  unworthiness  to  the  ab- 
stract. I  have  been  sure  for  many  years  that  the  subsiding  of 
a  tour,  if  I  may  so  speak,  is  quite  as  delightful  as  its  swelling ; 
I  call  it  its  subsiding,  when  one  passes  by  common  things  indif- 
ferently, and  even  great  things  with  a  fainter  interest,  because 
one  is  so  strongly  thinking  of  home  and  of  the  returning  to 
ordinary  relations  and  duties. 

Swiss  Lowlands,  July  29, 1840. 

23 We  have  left  the  mountains  and  lakes  of 

Switzerland,  and  are  entering  upon  the  Lowlands,  which,  like 
those  of  Scotland,  are  always  unduly  depreciated  by  being 
compared  with  their  Highlands.  The  Swiss  Lowlands  are  a 
beautiful  country  of  hill  or  valley,  —  never  flat,  and  never  bar- 
ren ;  —  a  country  like  the  best  parts  of  Shropshire  or  Worces- 
tershire. They  are  beautifully  watered,  —  almost  all  the  rivers 
flowing  out  of  lakes,  and  keeping  a  full  body  of  water  all  the 
year,  and  they  are  extremely  well  wooded,  besides  the  wooded 
appearance  given  to  the  country  by  its  numerous  walnut,  pear, 
and  apple  trees.  They  are  also  a  well-inhabited  and  appar- 
ently a  flourishing  country ;  nor  could  I  ever  discern  that 


APPENDIX  D.  385 

difference  between  the  Protestant  and  Catholic  Cantons,  under 
similar  circumstances,  which  some  of  our  writers  have  seen 
or  fancied.  As  for  the  present  aspect  of  the  country,  —  the 
corn  is  cutting,  but  not  cut ;  and  much  of  it  has  been  sadly 
laid.  Vines  there  are  none  hereabouts,  nor  maize,  but  plenty 
of  good  grass,  apple  and  pear  trees,  and  walnuts  numberless, 

—  hemp,  potatoes,  and  corn.     The  views  behind  the  moun- 
tains are  and  will  be  magnificent  all  the  way  till  we  get  over 
the  H  menstein  hills,  the  continuation  of  the  Jura,  and  we  are 
now  ascending  from  the  valley  of  the  Reuss  to  get  over  to  the 
feeder  of  the  Aar,  —  the  great  river  of  the  Bernese  Oberland 
and  of  Bern. 

August  6,  1840. 

24.  Arrived  at  St.  Omer.  —  And  Pave  is  dead,  and  we 
have  left  our  last  French  town  (except  Calais),  and  all  things 
and  feelings  French  seem  going  to  sleep  in  me,  —  cares  of 
carriage,  —  cares  of  passport,  —  cares  of  inns,  —  cares  of  pos- 
tilions and  of  Pave,  —  and  there  revive  within  me  the  habit- 
ual cares  of  my  life,  which  for  the  last  seven  weeks  have 
slumbered.  In  many  things  the  beginning  and  end  are  differ- 
ent, in  few  more  so  than  in  a  tour.  "  Coelum  non  animum 
mutant  qui  trans  mare  currunt,"  is  in  my  case  doubly  false. 
My  mind  changes  twice,  from  my  home  self  to  my  travelling 
self,  and  then  to  my  home  self  back  again.  On  this  day 
seven  weeks  I  travelled  this  very  stage ;  its  appearance  in 
that  interval  is  no  doubt  altered  ;  flowers  are  gone  by,  and 
corn  is  yellow  which  was  green ;  but  I  am  changed  even  more, 

—  changed  in  my  appetites  and  in  my  impressions ;  for  then 
I  craved  locomotion  and  rest  from  mental  work,  —  now  I  de- 
sire to  remain  still  as  to  place,  and  to  set  my  mind  to  work 
again  ;  —  then  I  looked  at  everything  on  the  road  with  in- 
terest, drinking  in  eagerly  a  sense  of  the  reality  of  foreign 
objects,  —  now  I  only  notice  our  advance  homeward,  and  for- 
eign objects  seem  to  be  things  with  which  I  have  no  concern. 
But  it  is  not  that  I  feel  any  way  tired  of  things  and  persons 
French,  only  that  I  do  so  long  for  things  and  persons  English. 
I  never  felt  more  keenly  the  wish  to  see  the  peace  between 
the  two  countries  perpetual ;  never  could  I  be  more  indignant 
at  the  folly  and  wickedness  which  on  both  sides  of  the  water 
are  trying  to  rekindle  the  flames  of  war.     The  one  effect  of 
the  last  war  ought  to  be  to  excite  in  both  nations  the  greatest 
mutual  respect.     France,  with  the  aid  of  half  Europe,  could 
not  conquer  England ;  England,  with  the  aid  of  all  Europe, 


886  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

never  could  have  overcome  France,  had  France  been  zealous 
and  united  in  Napoleon's  quarrel.  When  Napoleon  saw  kings 
and  princes  bowing  before  him  at  Dresden,  Wellington  was 
advancing  victoriously  in  Spain ;  when  a  million  of  men  in 
1815  were  invading  France,  Napoleon  engaged  for  three  days 
with  two  armies,  each  singly  equal  to  his  own,  and  was  for 
two  days  victorious.  Equally  and  utterly  false  are  the  follies 
uttered  by  silly  men  of  both  countries,  about  the  certainty  of 

one  beating  the   Other.      Ov  TroAu  5ia$e'pe   avBpumos  dvOpanrov  is 

especially  applicable  here.  When  Englishmen  and  French- 
men meet  in  war,  each  may  know  that  they  will  meet  in  the 
other  all  a  soldier's  qualities,  skill,  activity,  and  undaunted 
courage,  with  bodies  able  to  do  the  bidding  of  the  spirit  either 
in  action  or  in  endurance.  England  and  France  may  do  each 
other  incalculable  mischief  by  going  to  war,  both  physically 
and  morally ;  but  they  can  gain  for  themselves,  or  hope  to 
gain,  nothing.  It  were  an  accursed  wish  in  either  to  wish  to 
destroy  the  other,  and  happily  the  wish  would  be  as  utterly 
vain  as  it  would  be  wicked. 

August  6,  1840. 

25.  Left  Dover  7.45.  What  am  I  to  say  of  this  perfect 
road  and  perfect  posting;  of  the  greenness  and  neatness  of 
everything,  the  delicate  miniature  scale  of  the  country, — the 
art  of  the  painter  held  in  honor,  and  extending  even  to  barns 
and  railings,  —  of  the  manifest  look  of  spring  and  activity  and 
business  which  appears  in  everybody's  movements?  The 
management  of  the  Commissioner  at  Dover  in  getting  the 
luggage  through  the  Custom-House,  was  a  model  of  method 
and  expedition,  and  so  was  the  attendance  at  the  inns.  All 
this  fills  me  with  many  thoughts,  amongst  which  the  prevailing 
one  certainly  is  not  pride ;  for  with  the  sight  of  all  this  there 
instantly  comes  into  my  mind  the  thought  of  our  sad  plague- 
spots,  the  canker-worm  in  this  beautiful  and  goodly  fruit 
corrupting  it  within.  But  I  will  not  dwell  on  this  now,  —  per- 
sonally, I  may  indulge  in  the  unspeakable  delight  of  being 
once  again  in  our  beloved  country,  with  our  English  Church 
and  English  Law. 

August  7,  1840. 

2G.  Even  whilst  I  write,  the  houses  of  the  neighborhood 
of  London  are  being  left  behind,  and  these  bright  green  quiet 
fields  of  Middlesex  are  succeeding  one  another  like  lightning. 
So  we  have  passed  London,  —  no  one  can  tell  when  again  I 
may  revisit  it;  —  and  foreign  parts,  having  now  p'l  T"  r  ', 


APPENDIX  D.  387 

between  me  and  them,  are  sunk  away  into  an  unreality,  while 
Rugby  and  Fox  How  are  growing  very  substantial.  We  are 
now  just  at  Harrow  ;  and  here  too  harvest,  I  see,  has  begun. 
And  now  we  are  in  Hertfordshire,  crossing  the  valley  of  the 
Coin  at  Watford.  Watford  station  5.54.  Left  it  5.56.  Tring 
station  6.28.  Left  it  6.30.  And  now  we  are  descending  the 
chalk  escarpment,  and  it  may  be  some  time  before  I  set  my 
eyes  upon  chalk  again.  Here,  too,  in  Buckinghamshire,  I 
see  that  the  harvest  is  begun.  Leighton  Buzzard  station  6.48. 
Left  it  6.51.  This  speed  is  marvellous,  for  we  have  not  yet 
been  two  hours  on  our  journey,  and  here  we  are  in  the  very 
bowels  of  the  kingdom,  above  110  miles  from  Dover,  and  not 
quite  240  from  you,  my  boys.  Here  is  the  iron  sand,  and  we 
shall  soon  come  upon  our  old  friend  the  Oolite.  The  country 
looks  delicious  under  the  evening  sun,  so  green  and  rich  and 
peaceful.  Wolverton  station  and  the  food  7.15.  Left  it  7.27. 
Blisworth  station  7.53.  Left  it  7.56.  And  now  we  are  fairly 
in  Northamptonshire,  and  in  our  own  Rugby  country  in  a 
manner,  because  we  come  here  on  the  Kingsthorpe  clay. 

August  9, 1840. 

27.  Left  Milnethorpe  6.21.  My  last  day's  journal,  I  hope, 
dearest,  and  then  the  faithful  inkstand  which  has  daily  hung 
at  my  button-hole  may  retire  to  his  deserved  rest.  Our  tea 
last  night  was  incomparable;  such  ham,  such  bread  and 
butter,  such  cake,  and  then  came  this  morning  a  charge  of 
4s.  6rf.  for  our  joint  bed  and  board ;  when  those  scoundrels 
in  Italy,  whose  very  life  is  roguery,  used  to  charge  double 
and  treble  for  their  dog  fare  and  filthy  rooms.  Bear  witness 
Capua,  and  that  vile  Swiss-Italian  woman  whom  I  could  wish 
to  have  been  in  Capua  (Casilinum)  when  Hannibal  besieged 
it,  and  when  she  must  either  have  eaten  her  shoes,  or  been 
eaten  herself  by  some  neighbor,  if  she  had  not  been  too 
tough  and  indigestible.  But,  dearest,  there  are  other  thoughts 
within  me  as  I  look  out  on  this  delicious  valley  (we  are  going 
down  to  Levens)  on  this  Sunday  morning.  How  calm  and 
beautiful  is  everything,  and  here,  as  we  know,  how  little 
marred  by  any  extreme  poverty.  And  yet  do  these  hills  and 
valleys,  any  more  than  those  of  the  Apennines,  send  up  an 
acceptable  incense  ?  Both  do  as  far  as  Nature  is  concerned, 
—  our  softer  glory  and  that  loftier  glory  each  in  their  kind 
render  their  homage,  and  God's  work  so  far  is  still  very  good. 
But  with  our  just  laws  and  pure  faith,  and  here  with  a  whole- 


LIFE  OF  DR.   ARNOLD. 

some  state  of  property  besides,  is  there  yet  the  Kingdom  of 
God  here  any  more  than  in  Italy  ?  How  can  there  be  ?  For 
the  Kingdom  of  God  is  the  perfect  development  of  the  Church 
of  God:  and  when  Priestcraft  destroyed  the  Church,  the 
Kingdom  of  God  became  an  impossibility.  We  have  now 
entered  the  Winster  Valley,  and  are  got  precisely  to  our  own 
slates  again,  which  we  left  yesterday  week  in  the  Vosges. 
The  strawberries  and  raspberries  hang  red  to  the  sight  by  the 
road-side ;  and  the  turf  and  flowers  are  more  delicately  beauti- 
ful than  anything  which  I  have  seen  abroad.  The  moun- 
tains, too,  are  in  their  softest  haze ;  I  have  seen  Old  Man  and 
the  Langdale  Pikes  rising  behind  the  nearer  hills  most  beauti- 
fully. We  have  just  opened  on  Windermere,  and  vain  it  is 
to  talk  of  any  earthly  beauty  ever  equalling  this  country  in 
my  eyes ;  when  mingling  with  every  form  and  sound  and 
fragrance  comes  the  full  thought  of  domestic  affections,  and  of 
national,  and  of  Christian ;  here  is  our  own  house  and  home, 

—  here  are  our  own  country  laws  and  language,  —  and  here  is 
our  English  Church.     No  Mola  di  Gaeta,  no  valley  of  the 
Velino,  no   Salerno  or  Vietri,  no  Lago  di  Pie  di  Lugo,  can 
rival  to  me  this  vale  of  Windermere,  and  of  the  Rotha.    And 
here  it  lies  in  the  perfection  of  its  beauty,  the  deep  shadows 
on  the  unruffled  water,  —  the  haze  investing  Fairfield  with 
everything  solemn  and  undefined.     Arrived  at  Bowness  8.20. 
Left  it  at  8.31.     Passing  Ragrigg  Gate  8.37.     On  the  Bow- 
ness  Terrace  8.45.     Over  Troutbeck  Bridge  8.51.     Here  is 
Ecclerigg,   8.58.     And  here  Lowood  Inn,  9.4^.     And  here 
Waterhead  and  our  ducking-bench,  9.12.     The  valley  opens, 

—  Ambleside,  and  Rydal  Park,  and  the  gallery  on  Loughrigg. 
Rotha  Bridge  9.16.     And  here  is  the  poor  humbled  Rotha, 
and   Mr.  Brancker's  cut,  and  the  New  Millar  Bridge,  9.21. 
Alas !  for   the   alders   gone   and   succeeded  by  a  stiff  wall. 
Here  is  the  Rotha  in  his  own  beauty,  and  here  is  poor  T. 
Flemming's    Field,   and    our  own   mended   gate.      Dearest 
children,  may  we  meet  happily.     Entered  FOX  HOW,  and 
the  birch  copse  at  9.25,  and  here  ends  journal.  —  Walter  first 
saw  us,  and  gave  notice  of  our  approach.     We  found  all  our 
dear  children  well,  and  Fox  How  in  such  beauty,  that  no  scene 
in  Italy  appeared  in  my  eyes  comparable  to  it.     We  break- 
fasted, and  at  a  quarter  before  eleven,  I  had  the  happiness  of 
once  more  going  to  an  English  Church,  and  that  Church  out 
own  beloved  Rydal  Chapel. 


APPENDIX  D.  389 

XI.      TOUR   IN    SOUTH    OF   FIIANCE. 

July  4, 1841. 

1.  I  have  been  reading  Bunsen's  Liturgy  for  the  Holy  or 
Passion  Week,  with  his  Introduction.     He  has   spoken  out 
many  truths,  which  to  the  wretched  theology  of  our  schools 
would   be    startling   and  shocking :  but   they   are  not   hard 
truths,  but  real  Christian  truths  spoken  in  love,  such  as  St. 
Paul  spoke,  and  was  called  profane  by  the  Judaizers  for  doing 
so.     It  will  be  a  wonderful  day  when  the  light  breaks  in  upon 
our  High   Churchmen  and   Evangelicals :  how  many  it  will 
dazzle  and  how  many  it  will  enlighten,  God  only  knows :  but 
it  will  be  felt,  and  the  darkness  will  be  broken  up  before  it. 

Between  Angouleme  and  Bordeaux,  July  7, 1841. 

2.  Left  Barbiceaux  10.35,  very  rich  and  beautiful.     It  is 
not  properly  southern,  for  there  are  neither  olives  nor  figs ; 
nor  is  it  northern,  for  the  vines  and  maize  are  luxuriant.     It 
is  properly  France,  with  its  wide  landscapes,  no  mountains, 
but  slopes  and  hills ;  its  luminous  air,  its  spread  of  cultiva- 
tion, with  the  vines  and  maize  and  walnuts,  mixed  with  the 
ripe  corn,  as  brilliant  in  coloring  as  it  is  rich  in  its  associa- 
tions.    I  never  saw  a  brighter  or  a  fresher  landscape.     Green 
hedges  line  the  road ;  the  hay,  just  cut,  is  fragrant ;  every- 
thing is  really  splendid  for  man's  physical  well-being  :  —  it  is 
Kent  six   degrees  nearer  the  sun.     Nor  are  there  wanting 
church-towers  enough  to  sanctify  the  scene,  if  one  could  be- 
lieve that  with  the  stone  church  there  was  also  the  living 
church,  and  not  the  accursed  Priestcraft.     But,  alas  !  a  Priest 
is  not  a  Church,  but  that  which  renders  a  Church  impossible. 

July  10,  1841. 

3 I  find  that  the  dialect  here  is  not  Basque  after 

all,  but  Gascon,  that  is,  merely  a  Lingua  Romana,  more  or 
less  differing  from  the  northern  French.  I  fancied  that  I 
could  understand  some  of  the  words,  which  I  certainly  could 
not  have  done  in  Basque.  The  postmaster  of  S.  Paul  les 
Dax,  a  good-humored,  loquacious  old  gentleman,  told  me  that 
"  une  femme "  in  their  patois  was  "  une  Henne,"  a  curious 
instance  of  the  H  taking  place  of  the  F,  as  in  Spanish,  Hijo 
for  Filius.  Close  by  the  last  post  we  saw  the  church-spire  of 
Pouy,  the  native  place  of  Vincentius  of  Paula,  a  man  worthy 
of  all  memory.  I  have  just  seen  the  PYRENEES,  lowering  down 

33* 


390  LIFE  OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

towards  the  sea,  but  with  very  high  mountains  to  the  left  or 
eastward :  we  should  have  seen  more  of  them  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  clouds,  which  are  still  dark  and  black  to  the 
southward.  These  are  the  first  mountains  that  I  have  seen 
since  I  last  saw  our  own :  between  Westmoreland  and  the 
Pyrenees  there  are  none.  The  near  country  is  still  the  same, 
but  less  of  the  pine  forest. 

St.  Jean  de  Luz,  July  11,  1841. 

4.  It  is  this  very  day  year  that  we  were  at  Mola  di  Gaeta 
together,  and  I  do  not  suppose  it  possible  to  conceive  a  greater 
contrast  than  Mola  di  Gaeta  on  the  llth  of  July,  1840,  and 
S.  Jean  de  Luz  on  the  llth  of  July,  1841.     The  lake-like 
calm  of  that  sea,  and  the  howling  fury  of  this  ocean,  —  the 
trees  few  and  meagre,  shivering  from  the  blasts  of  the  Atlan- 
tic, and  the  umbrageous  bed  of  oranges,  peaches,  and  pome- 
granates, which  there  delighted  in  the  freshness  of  that  gentle 
water ;  —  the  clear  sky  and  bright  moon,  and  the  dark  mass 
of  clouds  and  drizzle,  —  the  remains  of  Roman  palaces  and 
the  fabled  scene  of  Homer's  poetry,  and  a  petty  French  fish- 
ing town,  with  its  coasting  Chasse  Marees :  these  are  some  of 
the  points  of  the  contrast.     Yet  those  vile  Italians  are  the 
refuse  of  the  Roman  slaves,  crossed  by  a  thousand  conquests ; 
and  these  Basques  are  the  very  primeval  Iberians,  who  were 
the  most  warlike  of  the  nations  of  the  West,  before  the  Kelts 
had  ever  come  near  the  shores  of  the  Mediterranean.     And 
the  little  pier,  which  I  have  been  just  looking  at,  was  the 
spot  where  Sir  Charles  Penrose  found  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton alone  at  the  dead  of  night,  when,  anxious  about  the  weather 
for  the  passage  of  the  Adour,  he  wished  to  observe  its  earliest 
signs  before  other  men  had  left  their  beds. 

July  12, 1841. 

5.  SPAIN.    Just  out  of  Iran,  sitting  on  a  stone  by  the  road- 
side.    We  have  left  our  carriage  in  France,  and  walked  over 
the  Bidassoa  to  Irun,  which  is  about  a  mile  and  a  half  from 
the  bridge.     We  went  through  the  town,  and  out  of  it  to  some 
high  ground,  where  we  had  the  whole  panorama.     The  views 
on  every  side  are  magnificent.     There  is  the  mouth  of  the 
Bidassoa,  Fontarabia  on  one  side  and  Audaye  on  the  other ; 
and  the  sea  blue  now,  like  the  Mediterranean.     Then  on  the 
other  side  are  the  mountains :  San  Marcial  on  its  rocky  sum- 
mit, and  the  adjoining  mountains  with  their  sides  perfectly 
green,  deep-wooded   combes,  fern   and   turf  on   the   slopes, 


APPENDIX  D.  391 

mingled,  as  in  our  own  mountains,  with  crags  and  cliffs.  And 
just  now  I  saw  a  silver  stream  falling  down  in  a  deep- wooded 
ghyll  to  complete  the  likeness.  Around  me  are  the  crops  of 
maize,  and  here  too  are  houses  scattered  over  the  country,  but 
less  neat-looking  and  fewer  than  in  France.  For  tke  town 
itself,  I  shall  speak  of  it  hereafter. 

Biobi.  —  We  are  just  returned  from  Spain,  and  are  again 
seated  in  our  carriage  to  return  to  Bayonne.  Now  what  have 
I  seen  in  Spain  worth  notice?  The  very  instant  that  we 
crossed  the  Bidassoa,  the  road,  which  in  France  is  nerfect,  be- 
came utterly  bad,  and  the  street  of  Irun  itself  was  intolerable. 
The  town,  in  its  style  of  building,  resembled  the  worst  towns 
of  Central  Italy ;  the  galleries  on  the  outside  of  the  houses, 
the  overhanging  roofs,  and  the  absence  of  glass.  It  strikes 
me  that  if  this  same  style  prevails  both  in  Spain  and  Italy, 
where  modern  improvement  has  not  reached,  it  must  be  of 
very  great  antiquity ;  derived,  perhaps,  from  the  time  when 
both  countries  were  united  under  a  common  Government,  the 
lloman  ;  unless  it  is  to  be  traced  to  the  Spanish  ascendency  in 
Italy,  which  indeed  it  may  be.  Behind  Irun,  towards  the  in- 
terior, are  two  sugar-loaf  mountains  very  remarkable.  The 
hill-sides  are  all  covered  with  dwarf  oaks,  not  ilex,  which 
look,  at  a  distance,  like  the  apple-trees  of  Picardy,  with  just 
that  round  cabbage-like  head. 

Near  Agen,  July  14. 

6.  For  some  time  past  the  road  has  been  a  terrace  above 
the  lower  bank  of  the  Garonne,  which  is  flowing  in   great 
breadth  and  majesty  below  us 

From  these  heights,  in  clear  weather,  you  can  see  the  Pyr- 
enees, but  now  the  clouds  hang  darkly  over  them 

One  thing  I  should  have  noticed  of  Agen,  that  it  is  the  birth- 
place of  Joseph  Scaliger,  in  some  respects  the  Niebuhr  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  but  rather  the  Bentley  ;  morally  far  be- 
low Niebuhr ;  and  though,  like  Bentley,  almost  rivalling  him 
in  acuteness,  and  approaching  somewhat  to  him  in  knowledge, 
yet  altogether  without  his  wisdom. 

Auch,  July  14,  1841. 

7.  At  supper  we  were  reading  a  Paris  paper,  Le  Siecle ;  but 
the  one  thing  which  struck  me,  and  rejoiced  my  very  heart, 
was  an  advertisement  in*  it  of  a  most  conspicuous  kind,  and  in 
very  large  letters  of  LA  SAINTE  BIBLE,  announcing  an  edi- 
tion, in  numbers,  of  De  Sacy's  French  translation  of  it.     I 
can  conceive  nothing  but  good  from  such  a  thing.     May  God 


392  LIFE   OF  DR.  ARNOLD. 

prosper  it  to  His  glory,  and  the  salvation  of  souls  ;  it  was  a 
joyful  and  a  blessed  sight  to  see  it. 

Bourges,  July  14. 

8 "We  found  the  afternoon  service  going  on  at  the 

Cathedral ;  and  the  Archbishop,  with  his  priests  and  the  chor- 
isters, were  going  round  the  church  in  procession,  chanting 
some  of  their  hymns,  and  with  a  great  multitude  of  people 
following  them.  The  effect  was  very  fine,  and  I  again  la- 
mented our  neglect  of  our  cathedrals,  and  the  absurd  confu- 
sion in  so  many  men's  minds  between  what  is  really  Popery, 
and  what  is  but  wisdom  and  beauty,  adopted  by  the  Roman 
Catholics  and  neglected  by  us. 

Paris,  July  20, 1841. 

9.  I  have  been  observing  the  people  in  the  streets  very 
carefully,  and  their  general  expression  is  not  agreeable,  that 
of  the  young  men  especially.  The  newspapers  seem  all  gone 
mad  together,  and  these  disturbances  at  Toulouse  are  very  sad 
and  unsatisfactory.  If  that  advertisement  which  I  saw  about 
La  Sainte  Bible  be  found  to  answer,  that  would  be  the  great 
specific  for  France.  And  what  are  our  prospects  at  home 
with  the  Tory  Government  ?  and  how  long  will  it  be  before 
Chartism  again  forces  itself  upon  our  notice  ?  So  where  is 
the  hope,  humanly  speaking,  of  things  bettering,  or  are  the 
Aoi/iot  and  AI/JOI,  and  iroXc^ot  and  d«co<u  7roXc/ia>i>,  ready  to  herald 
a  new  advent  of  the  Lord  to  judgment  ?  The  questions  con- 
cerning our  state  appear  to  me  so  perplexing,  that  I  cannot 
even  in  theory  see  their  solution.  We  have  not  and  cannot 
yet  solve  the  problem,  how  the  happiness  of  mankind  is  recon- 
cilable with  the  necessity  of  painful  labor.  The  happiness  of 
a  part  can  be  secured  easily  enough,  their  ease  being  provided 
for  by  others'  labor;  but  how  can  the  happiness  of  the  gen- 
erality be  secured,  who  must  labor  of  necessity  painfully  ? 
How  can  he  who  labors  hard  for  his  daily  bread  —  hardly, 
and  with  doubtful  success  —  be  made  wise  and  good,  and 
therefore  how  can  he  be  made  happy?  This  question  un- 
doubtedly the  Church  was  meant  to  solve ;  for  Christ's  King- 
dom was  to  undo  the  evil  of  Adam's  sins ;  but  the  Church 
has  not  solved  it,  nor  attempted  to  do  so ;  and  no  one  else  has 
gone  about  it  rightly.  This  is  the  great  bar  to  education. 
How  can  a  poor  man  find  time  to  be  educated  ?  You  may 
establish  schools,  but  he  will  not  have  time  to  attend  them,  for 
a  few  years  of  early  boyhood  are  no  more  enough  to  give  ed- 
ucation, than  the  spring  months  can  do  the  summer's  work 


APPENDIX   D.  393 

when  the  summer  is  all  cold  and  rainy;  But  I  must  go  to 
bed,  and  try  to  get  home  to  you  and  to  work,  for  there  is  great 
need  of  working.  God  bless  you,  my  dearest  wife,  with  all 
our  darlings. 

Boulogne,  July  23, 1841. 

10.  Our  tour  is  ended,  and  I  grieve  to  say  that  it  has  left 
on  my  mind  a  more  unfavorable  impression  of  France  than  I 
have  been  wont  to  feel.  I  do  not  doubt  the  great  mass  of  good 
which  must  exist,  but  the  active  elements,  those,  at  least,  which 
are  on  the  surface,  seem  to  be  working  for  evil.  The  viru- 
lence of  the  newspapers  against  England  is,  I  think,  a  very 
bad  omen,  and  the  worship  which  the  people  seem  to  pay  to 
Napoleon's  memory  is  also  deeply  to  be  regretted.  But  it  is 
the  misfortune  of  France  that  her  "  past "  cannot  be  loved  or 
respected ;  her  future  and  her  present  cannot  be  wedded  to  it ; 
yet  how  can  the  present  yield  fruit,  or  the  future  have  promise, 
except  their  roots  be  fixed  in  the  past  ?  The  evil  is  infinite, 
but  the  blame  rests  with  those  who  made  the  past  a  dead  thing, 
out  of  which  no  healthful  life  could  be  produced 

Much  as  I  like  coming  abroad,  I  am  never  for  an 

instant  tempted  to  live  abroad ;  not  even  in  Germany,  where 
assuredly  I  would  settle,  if  I  were  obliged  to  quit  England. 
But  not  the  strongest  Tory  or  Conservative  values  our  Church 
or  Law  more  than  I  do,  or  would  find  life  less  liveable  without 
them.  Indeed  it  is  very  hard  to  me  to  think  that  those  can 
value  either  who  can  see  their  defects  with  indifference ;  or 
that  those  can  value  them  worthily,  that  is,  can  appreciate 
their  idea,  who  do  not  see  wherein  they  fall  short  of  their  idea. 
And  now  I  close  this  Journal  for  the  present,  praying  that 
God  may  bless  us,  and  keep  us  in  worldly  good  or  evil  in  Him- 
self and  in  His  Son.  Amen. 


THE  FOLLOWING  IS  A  LIST   OF 

DR.  ARNOLD'S  PUBLISHED  WOKKS. 


THEOLOGICAL  WORKS. 

L  Six  volumes  of  Sermons :  — 

1st.  Sermons  preached  at  Laleham,  1829. 

2d.  Sermons  preached  in  the  School  Chapel  at  Rugby.  With  five 
Sermons  on  the  Social  State  of  England,  and  an  Essay  on  the  Interpre- 
tat  ion  of  Scripture,  1832.  [These  last  are  omitted  in  a  smaller  edition 
of  this  volume,  entitled  "  Sermons  preached  in  Rugbv  Chapel,"  1832, 
which  contains  two  sermons  not  in  the  larger  edition.] 

3d.  Selection  of  Sermons,  1832-34,  with  a  Preface  on  the  Study  of 
Theology,  and  two  Appendices  on  Atheism,  and  on  the  Doctrine  of 
Apostolical  Succession. 

4th  Selection  of  Sermons,  1835-41,  entitled  "Christian  Life,  its 
Course,  its  Helps,  and  its  Hindrances;"  with  a  Preface  on  the  Oxford 
School  of  Theology,  and  notes  on  Tradition,  Rationalism,  and  Inspira- 
tion. 

6th.  Sermons  preached  1841-42,  (posthumous,)  entitled  "  Christian 
Life,  its  Hopes,  its  Fears,  and  its  Close." 

6th.  Sermons  mostly  on  the  Interpretation  of  Scripture  ( posthumous j. 

IL  Two  Sermons  on  Prophecy,  with  Notes,  1839. 
III.  Fragments  on  Church  and  State  (posthumous). 

HISTORICAL  AND  PHILOLOGICAL  WORKS. 

I.  Edition  of  Thucydides,  1st  edition,  1830, -33, -35.     2d 
edition,  1840, -41, -42. 

The  first  volume  contains  a  Preface  on  the  previous  editions  of  Thu- 
cydides, (omitted  in  the  2d  edition,)  and  Appendices. 

1.  On  the  Social  Progress  of  States.  2.  On  the  Spartan  Constitution. 
3.  (Omitted  in  the  2d  edition,)  on  the  Constitution  of  the  Athenian 
Tribes. 

The  second  contains  a  collation  of  a  Venetian  MS.  and  Appendices 
on  the  Date  of  the  Pythian  Games,  and  on  the  Topography  of  Megara, 
Corinth,  Sphacteria,  and  Amphipolis. 

The  third  contains  a  Preface  on  the  General  Importance  of  Greek 
History  to  Political  Science,  and  an  Appendix  on  the  Topography  of 
Syracuse. 

"[Of  these  Essays,  the  First  Appendix  to  Vol.  I.  and  the  Preface  to 
Vol.  III.  are  now  published  in  the  u  Miscellaneous  Works."] 

II.  History  of  Rome,  in  3  volumes,  1838, -40, -42,  which 
was  broken  off,  by  his  death,  at  the  end  of  the  Second 
Punic  War. 


DR.  ARNOLD'S  PUBLISHED  WORKS.  395 

III.  History  of  the  later  Roman  Commonwealth,  from  the  end 

of  the  Second  Punic  War  to  the  Death  of  Julius  Caesar, 
and  the  Reign  of  Augustus:  with  a  Life  of  Trajan. 
Written  1821-27,  and  republished  from  the  Encyclo- 
paedia Metropolitana.  2  volumes. 

IV.  "Introductory  Lectures  on  Modern  History."     1842. 

MISCELLANEOUS  WORKS. 
(Mostly  republished  in  one  volume,  octavo.) 

I.  u  The  Christian  Duty  of  conceding  the  Roman  Catholic 

Claims."     1828. 
II.  Englishman's  Register,  Articles  in,  signed  A.     1831. 

III.  Tract  on  the  Cholera,  addressed  to  the  inhabitants  of 

Rugby.     1831. 

IV.  Letters  to  the  Sheffield  Courant,  on  the  Social  Distress 

of  the  Lower  Orders.     1831  -  32. 

V.  Preface  on  "  Poetry  of  Common  Life,"  to  a  collection  of 
poetry  under  that  name.  Published  by  J.  C.  Platt, 
Sheffield.  1832. 

VI.  "Principles  of  Church  Reform,"  with  "Postscript."  1833. 
VII.  Letters  to  the  Hertford  Reformer,  on  Chartism,  and 

on  Church  and  State.     1839,  -40,  -41. 
VIII.  Lecture  before  Mechanics'  Institute,  at  Rugby,  on  the 

Divisions  of  Knowledge.     1839. 

IX.  Paper  on  the  revival  of  the  order  of  Deacons.     1841. 
In  addition  to  these  were  various  articles  in  periodical  journals. 

1.  On  Souther's  Wat  Tyler.        J  RHtkh  Prihp  ISIQ    20 

2.  On  Cunningham's  De  Ranee.  \  Kl  tic'  18       '20' 

3.  On  Niebuhr's  "  History  of  Rome."     In  Quarterly  Review,  vol. 
xxxii.     1825. 

4.  On  "  Letters  of  an  Episcopalian."    Ed.  Review,  vol.  xliv.    1826. 
6.  On  "  Dr.  Hampden."     Edinb.  Review,  vol  Ixiii.     1836. 

6.  On  "Rugby  School,"  and  on  "The  Discipline  of  Public  Schools, 
by  a  Wykehamist,"  in  the  Quarterly  Journal  of  Education,  vols.  vii., 
ix.  1834-35. 


The  monument  to  Dr.  Arnold's  memory  in  Rugby  Chapel 
was  executed  by  Mr.  Thomas.  The  Epitaph  was  written  by 
Chevalier  Bunsen,  in  imitation  of  those  on  the  tombs  of  the 
Scipios,  and  of  the  early  Christian  inscriptions  on  similar 
subjects. 


I1STD  EX. 


ABBOTT,  Jacob,  i.  325,  342;  ii.  83. 

Alexander,  i.  189. 

America,  i.  342. 

Animal  Magnetism,  ii.  91. 

Antichrist,  i.  83,  178,  228;  ii.  98, 
166. 

Appii  Forum,  ii.  371. 

Aristocracy,  i  180;  ii.  115,  172, 
319 

Aristotle,  i.  30,  79;  ii.  234. 

Arnold,  Thomas.  Birth,  i.  17.— 
Education  at  school,  17, 18.  —  En- 
trance at  Oxford,  22.  —  Marriage 
and  settlement  at  Laleham,  39.  — 
Election  at  Rugby,  62.  —  Purchase 
of  Fox  How,  215.  —  Professorship 
at  Oxford,  ii.  244,  267.  — Death, 
289.  —  Character  as  a  boy,  i.  17, 
18;  —  as  a  young  man,  35;  —  at 
Laleham,  37.  —  Religions  belief, 
37.  —  General  views  in  later  life, 
175.  —  Domestic  life,  208.  — Inter- 
course with  friends,  211; — with 
the  poor,  213.  —  Formation  of  his 
opinions,  ii.  176. 

Articles  of  the  Church  of  England, 
i.  33,319;  ii.  188. 

Arts,  Degree  in,  i.  365;  ii.  80. 

Asia  Minor,  i.  362. 

Association,  British,  ii.  151. 

Athanasian  Creed,  ii.  117. 

Atheism,  i.  276,  366;  ii.  69. 

Attic  Society,  i.  32. 

Austria,  ii.  201. 

Avignon,  ii.  151,  350. 

Babylon,  i.  335. 

Balston,  Henry,  illness  and  death,  ii. 

198,  217. 
Barante,  ii.  56. 
Basque  language,  ii.  274. 
Blackstone,  Rev.  F.  C ,  i.  33. 
Buccaneers,  ii.  178. 
Buckland,  Professor,  i.  32. 
Bunsen,  Chevalier,  i.  64,  321,  352; 

ii.  124,  126,  132. 


Bunyan,  ii.  67. 
Butler,  ii.  67. 
Byron's  Cain,  i.  267. 

Canons,  ii.  188. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  ii.  116,  167,  16& 
275,  282,  287. 

Caution,  i.  280;  ii.  249. 

Chapel,  Rugby,  i.  158. 

Chartism,  ii.  125, 143, 150, 169. 

Chartres,  ii.  348. 

China,  war  with,  ii.  183. 

Chivalry,  i.  228. 

Cholera,  i.  246,  269;  ii.  91. 

Christian  Knowledge  Society,  i.  282. 

Church,  endowment  and  building  of, 
ii.  162. 

extension,  ii.  192. 

government,  i.  337. 

consent  of,  55.  76. 

property,  ii.  70. 

of  England,  i.  323,  866;  Di- 
vines of,  ii.  67, 150. 

Reform,  first  thoughts  of,  L 


67.  —  Pamphlet  on,  290. 

Rates,  ii.  70. 

History  of,  i.  848 ;  ii.  76. 

Views  of  its  ends  and  nature, 


i.  200;  ii  24,  68,  126,  212,  216.— 
In  what  sense  a  society,  i.  243. 

and    State,  work   on,  i.  59, 


200.  —  Identity  of,  i.  204,  323,  327 ; 

ii.  102,  381. 

Civilization,  i.  359,  367. 
Classics,  i.  129. 

Clerical   profession,   ii.   140.  —  Edu- 
cation, i.  334;  ii.  152. 
Clubs,  i.  342 ;  ii.  230. 
Cobbett,  i.  80,  81,  354. 
Coleridge,  Mr.  Justice,  Letter  from, 

i.   22.  —  Elevation  to  the  Bench, 

347. 
Coleridge,  Samuel  Taylor,  i.  30,  378; 

ii.  34,  61,  176. 
Cologne,  ii.  327.  —  Archbishop  of,  ii 

102. 


INDEX. 


397 


Colonization,  i.  235;  iL  62, 173, 189, 

282. 

Colosseum,  ii.  324. 
Commentary,  design  of,  L  194,  M4, 

286. 

Communion  at  Rugby,  i.  151. 
Como,  Lake  of,  ii.  316,  332. 
Confession,  i.  328. 
Confirmations,  i.  150, 162;  ii.  144. 
Conservatism,  L   ISO,  228,  253;  ii. 

29. 

Consumption,  i.  369;  ii.  198. 
Conversion  of  barbarian  nations,  i. 

58, 193. 

Convicts,  i.  225 ;  ii.  52. 
Corn  Laws,  i.  182,  263;  ii.  167. 
Cornish,  Rev.  George,  i.  27. 
Corpus  Christi  College,  i.  23. 
Corfu,  ii.  182. 
Cran,  plain  of,  ii.  147,  351. 
Crucifixes,  i.  274. 
Cyprian,  ii.  201,  243. 
Cyrus,  a  type  of  Christ,  ii.  177. 

Daniel,  Prophecies  of,  i.  80;  ii.  173. 
Davison,  Rev.  John,  ii.  176. 
Deacons,  revival  of,  ii.  138, 195. 
Delafield,  Mrs.  Frances,  ii.  64. 
Demosthenes,  i.  140. 
Discipline,  Church,  i.  203. 
Dissenters,   L   365;   ii.   171,  235.— 

Admission   of  to  Universities,  L 

333. 

Dominic,  ii.  46. 
Dyson,  Rev.  Francis,  i.  28. 

Edinburgh  Review,  article  in,  ii.  20. 
Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  ii.  131. 
Elections,  ii.  346." 
Elbe,  ii.  327. 

Elphinstone's  India,  ii.  273. 
Englishman's  Register,  i.  249,  259, 

261,263,269;  ii.  169. 
Episcopacy,  respect  for,  L  239,  338. 

—  Not  essential,  i.  382;  ii- 181. 
Etruscans,  ii.  30. 
Evangelicals,  i.  90,  250,  255. 
Evelyn,  George,  i.  224. 
Evidences  of  Christianity,  i.  272. — 

Internal,  ii.  201. 

F.vidences  of  Theism,  i.  277,  366. 
Eucharist,  doctrine  of,  ii.  77. 
Examiner,  office  of,  ii.  82. 
Expulsion  from    public    schools,   L 

122. 

Fagging,  i.  116. 

Fanaticism,  ii.  46. 

Festivals  of  the  Church,  L  149. 


Feudality,  dislike  to,  f.  228,  364. 
Fifth  form  at  public  schools,  i.  949. 
Fleury's    Ecclesiastical   History,  L 

345. 

Flogging,  i.  113. 
Florence,  i.  82. 

Flowers,  love  of,  L  218;  ii.  191. 
Foundationers  of  Rugby  School,  ii. 

142. 

Fox  How,  i.  215;  ii.  53, 164,  198. 
Franklin,  Sir  John,  ii.  52. 
France,  ii.  97,  349,  355,  393. 
Freemasonry,  ii.  230. 
Fronde's  Remains,  ii.  121. 

Gains,  Institutes  of,  ii.  62. 

Cell,  J.  P.,  appointed  principal  of  a 

college  in  X  an  Diemen's  Land,  iL 

139.  — Letter  from,  iL  296. 
Geology,  i.  32;  ii.  151. 
Germany,  iL  327,  342. 
Girls,  education  of,  ii.  215. 
Gladstone  on  Church  and  State,  ii. 

138. 
on  Church  principles,  iL 

213. 

Goethe,  ii.  71. 

Grammars,  i.  350;  ii.  77, 121. 
Greek  history,  i.  187. 
Greek,  influence  of,  i.  359. — Ancient 

and  modern,  iL  223. 
Grotins,  L  345. 
Guizot,  i.  241;  iL  216,  342. 

Hampden,  Rev.  Dr.,  L  37;  ii.  18,  35. 

Hannibal,  like  Nelson,  ii.  221.  —  His 
march,  245. 

Hare,  Rev.  Augustus,  L  33.  —  His 
death,  330. 

Archdeacon,  L  33. 

Hawkins,  Rev.  Dr.,  i.  37.  — Predic- 
tion on  the  election  at  Rugby,  62, 
171.  —  Bampton  Lectures,  iL  201. 

Hearn,  Rev.  James,  i.  46. 

Hebrew,  attempts  to  learn,  L  355; 
ii.  131. 

Hebrews,  Epistle  to,  doubts  respect- 
ing, ii.  128. 

Heresy,  i.  319,  320. 

Herodotus,  i.  31.  140;  ii.  99. 

Hertford  Reformer,  letters  to,  iL  96, 
126. 

Hey's  Lectures,  i.  344. 

Horace,  i.  143. 

Hooker,  iL  67. 

Homer,  L  141. 

Hull,  W.  W.,  L  S3, 

Idolatry,  ii.  47,  858. 


398 


INDEX. 


Illyrians,  i.  341. 

Impartiality  in  religion,  ii.  71 

India,  interest  in,  ii.  179,  272. 

Innocent  III.,  i .  349 ;  ii.  262. 

Inscriptions,  ii.  379. 

Inspiration,  i.  86,  197. 

Intellectual  united  with  moral  ex- 
cellence, i.  126 

Interpretation  of  Scripture,  i.  194.  — 
Essay  on.  i.  252,  274,  275. 

Isle  of  Wight,  ii.  50. 

Ireland,  i.  326,  336;  ii.  41,  44.— 
Scenery  of,  ii.  75. 

Irvingism,  i.  270;  ii.  27. 

Italy,  ii.  223,  360. 

Jacobinism,  i.  180,  312,  333;  ii.  151. 
James,  St.,  Epistle  of,  i.  256. 
Jerusalem,  Bishopric  of,  ii.  247. 
Jesuits,  ii.  110. 
Jews,  admission  of,  to   Parliament, 

ii.  40,  44.  —  Influence  of,  ii.  263. 
Jowett's  Researches,  i.  77. 

Keble,  Rev.  John,  i.  28.  — Advice 
and  letter  on  doubts,  34.  —  Chris- 
tian Year,  28. 

Laing  on  Norway,  ii.  167. 

Laleham,  i.  39,  45. 

Lamennais,  ii.  250. 

Latin  Poets,  i.  140. 

Law,  profession  of,  i.  63 ;  ii.  73,  92. 

Lee,  Rev.  J.  P.,  ii.  145 

Legends  of  Roman  History,  ii.  99, 

100. 

Liberal  principles,  i.  181,  357,  370. 
Lieber  on  education,  ii.  31,  86. 
Lightfoot,  i.  345. 
Livy,  i.  188,  241,  372;  ii.  245. 
London,  ii.  347. 
London  University,  ii.  20,  24,  31,  80, 

85,  92,  94,  106,  122. 
Louis,  St.,  i.  142. 
Lowe,  Rev.  J.,  i.  33. 
Lugano,  ii.  336. 

Macaulay,  T.  B.,  ii.  118. 

Mahometanism,  ii.  368. 

Marriage  -Bill,  ii.  51. 

Martyrs,  strong  feeling  towards,  i. 

192;  ii.  242,  370. 
Masters,  assistant,  ii.  191. 
Mathematics,  i.  131. 
Materialism,  ii.  60. 
Maurice,  Rev.  F.,  ii.  175,  286. 
Mechanics'  Institutes,  i.  212,339;  ii. 

125,  150,  166. 
Mediterranean,  ii.  390. 


Medicine,  ii.  60,  73,  92. 
Merivale,  Herman,  ii.  105. 
Millennium,  i.  207,  271. 
Milman's  History  of  Jews,  i.  242. 
Milton's  Satan,  ii.  358. 
Missionary,  call  to  be,  ii.  179. 
Moberly,  Rev.  Dr.,  i.  100.  — Letter 

from,  172. 

Mola  di  Gaeta,  ii.  371,  390. 
Modena,  ii.  380. 
Modern  languages,  i.  131.  —  History, 

131. 

Monte  Mario,  ii.  322.    " 
Mountain  scenery,  i.  329 ;  ii.  53. 
Music,  ii.  190. 

Naples,  ii.  372. 

National  debt,  i.  182,  262. 

Neutrality,  ii.  61. 

New  Zealand,  ii.  173, 180. 

Newman,  Rev.  John  Henry,  ii.  17, 

102. 

Newspaper  writing,  ii.  96,  178. 
Niebuhr,  i.  56 ;  ii.  174.  —  Visit  to,  i. 

241,   260.  —  Death,   259.  —  Third 

volume,  321;  ii.   144.  — Life  and 

letters,  144. 
Nonjurors,  ii.  110. 

Oaths,  ii.  214,  267. 

Old  Testament,  views  of,  i.  193,  356, 

374. 

Ordination,  ii.  127,  162. 
Oriel  College,  i.  37. 
Orleans,  ii.  356. 
Oscans,  ii.  30. 
Oxford  school  of  theology,  ii.  15,  46, 

110,  165,  222,  265,  286. 
Oxford,  i.  22,  64;  ii.  24, 104, 197, 199, 

204,  256. 

Oxford  Examinations,  ii.  120. 
Ottery,  ii.  203. 

Padua,  i.  241. 
Pantheon,  ii.  369. 
Papacy,  ii.  261,  262,  379. 
Paris,  ii.  97. 

Party  spirit,  i.  182;  ii.  91. 
Paul,  St.,  Epistles  of,  i.  193,  256 ;  it 
60,  63.  — Journey  to  Rome,  ii.  371. 
Pearson  on  the  Creed,  ii.  216. 
Penrose,  Rev.  T.,  i.  39. 
Pestilences,  ii.  91. 
Physical  science,  ii.  43, 191. 
Pisa,  ii.  361. 
Pindar,  i.  365. 
Plato,  i.  140,  189,  372,  378. 
Poetry  in  Education,  i.  236 ;  ii.  66 
Pole's  Synopsis,  i.  345. 


INDEX. 


399 


Politics,!.  179;  ii.  382. 

Political  rights,  ii.  172. 

Political  economy,  i.  182. 

Polybius,  i.  373. 

Pompeii,  ii.  372. 

Pompey,  i.  191. 

Poor,  intercourse  with,  i.  212;  ii.  61. 

Poor  Law,  New,  ii.  65,  136. 

Popular  principles,  i.  182,357,370; 

ii.  166,  170,  171. 

Prayers  in  Rugby  School,  ii.  299. 
Price,  B.,  Letter  from,  i.  50. 
Priesthood,  doctrine  of,  i.  202,  333; 

ii.  65,  91,  102,  170,  202,  213,  371, 

388,  392. 

Private  schools,  i.  361. 
Privilege  question,  ii.  182. 
Professorship  at  Oxford,  ii.  255. 
Prophets,  use  of,  i.  254,  256. 
Prophecy,  early  views  of,  i.  79. — 

Two   Sermons    on,    199;    ii.   114, 

125,  177,  193. 

Prussia,  ii.  196. — King  of,  ii.  270. 
Public    schools,    state   of,   i.   96.  — 

Constitution  of,  113.  —  Change  in, 

172. 

Quakers,  ii.  27. 

Railways,  ii.  347. 

Randell,  Rev.  James,  i.  33. 

Rationalism,  ii.  60,  81. 

Reactions,  ii.  67. 

Record  Newspaper,  i.  255. 

Reform  Bill,  i.  262,  264 ;  ii.  346. 

Reformation  in  England,   i.   80;  ii. 

25,  260. 
Revolution,    French,    i.   81,   255.  — 

Second    French  Revolution,   240, 

244,  259. 
Rieti,  ii.  374. 
Rivers,  ii.  329. 
Robespierre,  ii.  46. 
Roman   History,    i.   20,   54,   190.  — 

Plan  of,   ii.  "32,  73.  —  Motives  in 

undertaking  it,   i.   53,   297.  —  1st 

volume  of,  ii.  114.  — 2d,  182,  192, 

204.  — 3d,  218,  221. 

Empire,  ii.  372. 

Catholicism,    i.    83,   234.  — 

Abroad,  ii.  316,  323,  348,  392. 
-  Catholic  Relief  Act,  i.  220. 


—  Pamphlet  in  defence  of,  219. 
Rome,  visits  to,  i.  64;  ii.  318,  369. — 

Advice  on  visiting,  119. 
Rothe  on  the  Church,  ii.  103. 
Rugby  Magazine,  i.  346,  377. 
Rugby,  i.  213,  369 ;  ii.  115,  194. 
Russia,  ii.  200. 


Ryder,  Bishop,  i.  150,  213. 

Sacraments,  administration  of,  ii.  58. 

Sacrifice,  Eucharistic,  ii.  230. 

Salon,  ii.  149,  351. 

Sanderson  on  Government,  ii.  101. 

Sanscrit,  ii.  205. 

Savigny,  ii.  324. 

Scaliger,  ii.  391. 

Scepticism,  i.  366;  ii.  121. 

Schism,  i.  233,  331 ;  ii.  235. 

Scotch  Presbyterian  Church,  ii.  343, 
344. 

Scripture  teaching,  i.  144.  —  Read- 
ing of,  160.  —  1  ranslation  of  in 
French,  ii.  391. 

Sectarianism,  i.  202,  346. 

Sermons  at  Rugbv,  i.  152.  —  1st  vol- 
ume, i.  59,  96"  —  2d,  152,  246.  — 
3d,  298.  — 4th,  ii.  128,  217,  235.— 
5th,  241.  —  Plan  for  collection  of, 
i.  284. 

Shakespeare,  ii.  55. 

Sheffield  Courant  Letters,  i.  249,  269. 

Sixth  Form  in  Public  Schools,  i. 
115. 

Selwyn,  Bishop,  ii.  253,  273. 

Slavery,  ii.  137,  381.  —  In  West  In- 
dies, i.  79. 

Socrates,  i.  188. 

Southey,  i.  325 ;  ii.  34. 

State  services,  ii.  192. 

Stephen,  James,  ii.  226. 

Strauss,  ii.  63,  157. 

Strype,  i.  345. 

Subscription,  difficulties  of,  ii.  117, 
127,  187,  195. 

Succession,  Apostolical.  ( See  Priest- 
hood.) 

Sunday,  i.  315. 

Supremacy  of  the  King,  ii.  170. 

Swiss,  ii.  382. 

Switzerland,  ii.  382. 

Syracusan  Expedition,  i.  188. 

Sylla,  i.  186,  191 ;  ii.  46. 

Taylor,  Isaac,  ii.  165. 

Jeremy,  ii.  67. 

Te  Deum,  love  for,  i.  149. 

Timothy,  Epistles  to,  i.  374 ;  ii.  30. 

Theological  reading,  i.  344;  ii.  153. 
—  Plan  for  review,  i.  348. 

Thirlwall's  Greece,  ii.  174. 

Thomas,  St.,  confession  of,  i.  41, 
147;  ii.  289. 

Thucydides,  fondness  for,  i.  30,  132; 
ii.  89.  —  Edition  of,  i.  62.  —  Sec- 
ond edition,  ii.  124. 

Tongues,  gift  of,  i.  270 ;  ii.  27. 


400 


INDEX. 


Toulon,  ii.  151. 

Tracts  for  the  Times,  i.  330;  ii.  48. 

Tract  xc.,  ii.  129,  261. 

Tradition,  ii.  26,  109. 

Translation,  i.  139;  ii.  65.— Of  the 

Bible,  i.  326. 
Transportation,  ii.  150. 
Travelling,  ii.  325,  384. 

Journals,  ii.  314. 

Tucker,  Rev.  J.,  i.  26,  303;  ii.  236. 

Unitarianism,  i.  230,  308,  326;    ii. 

38,  81,  146. 

University  Reform,  ii.  78, 101. 
Useful  Knowledge  Society,  i.  248, 267. 
Utilitarianism,  i.  310 ;  ii.  56. 

Van  Diemen's  Land,  College  in,  ii. 

140,  190,  226,  228. 
Venice,  i.  241. 


Viva-voce  examinations,  ii.  lia. 

Warminster,  i.  17, 18,  20,  21. 
War,  horror  of,  ii.  202,  211. 
Wardenship  or  Manchester  declined, 

ii.  196. 

Weather,  interest  in,  ii.  84. 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  despatches,  iL 

84. 

Welsh,  study  of,  ii.  187. 
Whately,  Rev.   Dr.,  i.   37,   55,  275 

321.  —  Prediction  at    Oriel    ele<> 

tion,  38.  —  Elevation  to  the  see  of 

Dublin,  273. 
Wills,  ii.  337. 
Winchester,  i.  18;  ii.  50. 
Wordsworth,  i.  30,  280.  —  Degree  at 

Oxford,  ii.  126, 147. 

Young,  Arthur,  i.  254,  256 


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